


Forensic Science (Independent Study)

by greendale_student



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Gen, Murder Mystery, Mystery, Post-Season/Series 06, hints of annie/abed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-08-28 03:24:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 23,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8429992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greendale_student/pseuds/greendale_student
Summary: During her internship at the FBI, Annie stumbles onto a mystery with connections to Greendale.





	1. Introductory Private Investigation

The rain was falling like orange paint in the Greendale library during our second school paintball game, but now there was no thrill of victory in the air, just the temporary relief of finishing another long day at the office.  I reminded myself that I was supposed to be excited to be here, that an internship at the FBI was a rare opportunity—especially for graduates of nationally mocked community colleges.  But eight weeks of filling out forms and bringing coffee to presumably important federal agents had taken its toll on my natural optimism.  I wanted to go back to Apartment 303, to Troy and Abed’s antics, a blanket fort in the living room, and the prospect of a day at Greendale, where any mundane situation could turn into an adventure.  Since Abed was on the other side of the continent, Troy was somewhere out on the ocean, and I was a couple thousand miles from Greendale, my immediate goal was to get back to the little apartment I’d rented in Washington while staying as dry as possible.

My name’s Annie Edison, but people call me “Psycho” because I had a nervous breakdown in high school.  OK, mostly I call myself that when I want to seem tough.  Not that I thought there was any need for it at the time.  After all, I was just an intern, and I’d learned the hard way that detective work wasn’t part of an intern’s job description.

The upper floors of the J. Edgar Hoover Building overhung the sidewalk for a short stretch.  That gave me a brief respite, but when I stepped out to cross the street I was drenched in seconds.  I was hurrying towards the nearest subway station when I heard someone call my name.  Turning around, I saw a young Asian man in a blue raincoat running after me.  “Annie, wait up!” he yelled.  “I need your help with something!”

“What is it, Brody?” I asked as he caught up, trying to sound cheerful enough to hide my exasperation.  Brody Leitz was the last head of Greendale Community College’s student government before the Dean abolished it.  He’d continued his career in politics as a staffer for our congressman.  I’d barely met him in my freshman year before he graduated, but since I’d come to Washington we’d met up a few times to reminisce about our alma mater.  There weren’t that many proud Greendale alumni to be found in the national capital.  Still, that didn’t account for why he’d be in such a hurry to get my help.

“I need a professional favor,” he explained.  “I’m worried about a friend.  A fellow Greendale graduate.  Christopher Weagle, he was the head of the Campus Republicans in my student government days, do you remember?”

The name sounded familiar.  Weagle had been another student a few years ahead of me when I first arrived at Greendale.  I wasn’t sure I’d ever talked to him, but I’d seen him in class.  He struck me as excessively straight-laced, and I designed crossword puzzles for fun.  I nodded and continued along the busy sidewalk at a brisk pace, hoping Brody would finish his story by the time I got to the station.

“He’s an intern like me now, works for one of the Colorado Republican representatives.  We’ve been meeting for lunch every week or so to argue about politics for old times’ sake.  We’d made plans today, but he never showed up and didn’t answer my texts.”

“Maybe you argued too much?” I asked tentatively.

Brody shook his head skeptically.  “He’s an ideologue.  He needs someone to yell at, or he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.  Besides, that’s not the end of it.  I tried calling his office and they said he’d missed work this morning and sent an email saying he was quitting.”

“Look, wouldn’t they know better than me?  I didn’t even know he was in D.C.”

“They don’t want to talk to me.  They know I work for the other side, they probably think I’m looking for a scandal to damage their boss.  But that was his dream job, he wouldn’t just quit unless something was wrong.”

“You said you needed a favor?” I pressed him.

“I don’t know where he lives, couldn’t find him in the phone book.  I thought, with your job at the Bureau, maybe you could find out, just so I can check in…”

I sighed.  He really seemed worried.  FBI headquarters was still closer than the train station.  I turned around abruptly.  “I’ll see what I can do.  Just wait outside and try to get a taxi.  If you pay for my ride home we’ll call it even.”

 

Returning to the FBI building, I swiped a card to get through the doors and took an elevator upstairs to the open, noisy room of cubicles where I worked.  A few interns were still there, apparently preferring paperwork to the elements.  No one paid me much attention as I logged on to one of the computers.  Interns weren’t given much information about cases, but basic research wasn’t something the top agents wanted to do very often, so I had access to some of the less secure databases—enough for a slightly improper search to turn up the information I needed.  Weagle’s legal residence was in Aspen, Colorado, but I found a mailing address in the District.  It wasn’t far away.

When I went back outside, Brody was waiting on the street corner and a taxi was pulling up.  “I found his place,” I told him.  “It’s sort of on my way.  Maybe I could come with you?  This is as close to real detective work as I’ve come since I started working here.”  Little did I know.

 

A few minutes later, we left the taxi on a quiet street in one of the city’s older, wealthier residential neighborhoods.  It took a few wrong turns to find the place, but we couldn’t get much wetter walking around than we already were.  It turned out to be a small guesthouse on an alley behind a larger house.  Both buildings looked deserted.

“How can he afford to live here?”  I wondered.

“His family has money,” Brody explained.  “He said something about them losing a lot in a bad business venture, but I guess they could still pay for this.  Our salaries sure wouldn’t.”

We walked up to the door, knocked repeatedly, yelled.  There was no response, no lights or signs of activity inside.  Increasingly anxious, Brody walked around to look in the windows.  On a whim, I tried the door in case it was unlocked.  The knob turned easily, but the door didn’t budge even when I pushed on it.  That seemed odd.

I took a good look at the door.  It looked a lot newer than the house, but it was scratched up.  Or, a spot under the doorknob was.  In fact, the whole thing was dented inward so I could see the latch.  It wasn’t closed properly at all, just jammed.  I pushed again, harder; it rattled but held.  Then I stepped back and gave it a kick.  My foot hurt, but the door swung open.

“Anybody here?” I called again, knowing it was superfluous.  I felt the wall for a light switch and turned it on, finding myself in a small living room.  The décor was sparse; that was to be expected if Weagle was only here short-term, as the Colorado residency suggested, but this was like a stage set that was only half-finished.  The carpet, walls, and ceiling were all white and unadorned, making the room resemble a laboratory—the sterile high-tech kind in movies, not a real one with tools and half-finished experiments everywhere.  There was a single empty chair and a couch, both facing a TV table that conspicuously had nothing on it.  Along the wall, a little bookshelf stood half-empty, with gaps where a few books had been removed.  I tiptoed nervously across the carpet, listening to the rain rattling against the windows.  When I got to the couch I stopped abruptly.  Brody had come back to the door to look inside.

“Call nine-one-one,” I told him, my voice sounding calmer than I’d expected.

The couch looked brand-new and more expensive than comfortable.  There were two throw pillows on it, meticulously placed at one end and exactly at the center.  Frozen in place, I stood there trying to focus on those mundane details.  It was all I could find to distract myself from looking at the other end of the couch.  That was where the corpse was.


	2. Intermediate Bureaucracy

The rest of the evening was hours of questions and answers—me answering questions from the police, and them declining to answer mine.  Once I’d recovered a bit from the shock of finding the body, I’d wanted to see the forensics team in action, but they insisted on taking Brody and I to the nearest precinct to be interviewed.  From the snippets of conversation I was able to overhear while waiting around outside the interrogation room, I gathered that the victim had been positively identified as Christopher Weagle and that a homicide investigation was under way.  He’d been killed by a single shot from a small handgun.  One young detective walking by said to a co-worker that it looked like a burglary gone wrong.  I tried to ask about that, but he ignored me and another officer told the two of us we had to wait down the hall, where I couldn’t see or hear much of what was going on in the big room where the detectives’ desks were.  After waiting a long time, with a brief interruption to answer a few more questions, I heard raised voices, as if something had happened that shocked everyone more than a routine murder.  I tried to creep back towards the source of the sound, but an officer emerged to announce that we were free to go and would be contacted if follow-up questions were required.  She offered us a ride home in a manner that suggested hanging out at the precinct any longer wasn’t an option.  As she hurried us out of the building, I saw a few reporters waiting in the lobby; apparently the murder had already attracted the attention of the local press.  Maybe that accounted for the rush to get us out of there.

 

When I finally arrived at the tiny studio apartment I’d occupied for the summer, I put on my pajamas, hurriedly microwaved dinner, and then sat down and stared at my phone.  I’d expected to see this kind of thing when I chose forensics as a career path, but I was still a little shaken by my first personal encounter with a murder scene and I wanted to talk to someone.  I thought about calling my grandmother, but it would worry her too much.  I scrolled through my contacts and looked at the names of my old study group.  Shirley, doing some amateur detective work herself in Atlanta, would want to hear every detail, but it was getting late and I didn’t want to wake her.  It was Britta’s night off from her bartending job; she was probably at the apartment I missed, with her cats and a temporary roommate she couldn’t stand.  But she would try to psychoanalyze my reaction, and I didn’t need that right now.  My finger hovered over Jeff’s number.  He would get all protective and worry about my safety.  Once the thought of that would have made my heart race; it no longer had such an effect, but it would still be nice to know he cared.

Only, in that conversation I would still be the object of concern and sympathy, and somehow that felt wrong tonight.  After weeks in a coveted internship that had turned out to be a lot like any other low-paying office job, I had finally done some real investigating and walked straight into my first crime scene.  That was scary, but it was what I had set out to do when I chose to study forensics.

I scrolled up and touched the screen where it read “Abed.”  It was still early evening in Los Angeles, and my longtime roommate might not know how he was expected to offer sympathy but he would listen and support me.  He picked up on the first ring.

“Hi, Annie.  Did something happen?  You usually just text on weeknights.”

Of course he would immediately know something was up.  “I just saw my first real crime scene.  I’m not sure how to feel about it.”

“Oh.  That might be a sharp change from our usual sitcom feel, but you’ll handle it well.  Did they finally let you in on an investigation?  Maybe all those slow days you complained about were just a training montage, except more boring.”

“Nope.  My job is still not much different from hospital administration.  I tried to help a friend track someone down in my free time, so of course he turned up dead.”

“You were a private eye whose small-time case led you to a murder?  Cool.  Cool, cool, cool.  Do you have any leads?”

I laughed faintly.  “Abed, the police are doing that, not me.  I just wanted to hear from you.  How’s your TV show going?”

“The first few episodes turned out great, but the network is causing problems.”  We chatted for a few minutes about his experiences in Hollywood and the latest news from our friends back at Greendale, then I felt ready to explain the details of my day.  Sharing the story made me feel steadier somehow.  I’d just gotten an early start to my career in the field; I could learn from the experience.

“It’s been really good to talk about it.  I think I just need to sleep now,” I told him.

“Okay.  Be careful, Annie.  Crime movies suggest that discovering a murder could involve you in all kinds of complicated plots.”

I didn’t give it much thought at the time.  “I’ll keep my eyes open.  Goodnight, Abed.”

 

The next morning the sun came out, bringing with it the stifling humid heat I still couldn’t get used to after two months in Washington.  On the way to work I stopped at a café for breakfast and picked up a newspaper.  There was a short article about the Weagle murder in the middle of the local news section, but no details about suspects or motives.  I took a short ride on the subway, walked the last couple blocks to the FBI building, and reached the upstairs room with its cubicles exactly on time.  Just like a normal day at work, except my boss was standing at my desk, waiting.

Julia Rodriguez was a low-level administrator, nearing retirement age, responsible for supervising my group of interns among other bureaucratic odds and ends.  Most of the time she assigned us our tasks, gave occasional advice in passing, and left us alone to finish our work or, more likely, keep up with the latest urgent demand from an agent working a case.  Something told me the special attention I was getting today wasn’t inspired by my job performance.

“Annie, can I see you in my office?  We need to discuss what happened yesterday.”

Apparently my involvement in the murder investigation had been promptly communicated to my employers.  _I thought local police hated having the feds involved in their cases._   Maybe the crime shows I watched with Abed had been too pessimistic about inter-agency cooperation.

Rodriguez’s office wasn’t empty.  Agent Leland Teeger was waiting in a chair next to her desk.  Teeger was one of the agents I did minor tasks for regularly—a young, up-and-coming investigator who managed to always seem friendly while never giving me his full attention.  I wondered if any of the other interns had ever managed to get _two_ higher-ups to sit down with them for any length of time.

“I realize I wasn’t supposed to look anyone up without permission—“ I began.

“I should certainly take the opportunity to remind you that your database access is not for personal use,” Rodriguez interrupted, “but since the crime scene could have gone cold if you hadn’t happened to show up when you did, I won’t hold it against you.  Just next time, tell the proper authorities if someone asks you about something suspicious.  I mainly called you here to make sure you’re all right.  Lots of agents have a hard time when they first see a scene like that, and usually they’re prepared for it.”

“It was kind of frightening,” I admitted, “but it’s what I signed up for.”

Rodriguez looked a bit taken aback at that—just for an instant.  “The case has been handed over to the Bureau.  Agent Teeger is lead investigator.  He’ll ask you if there is any follow-up on your statement needed.  Make sure you don’t discuss the details with anyone else until they are made public.”

So much for inter-agency cooperation.  The FBI had pushed the D.C. police out of their own investigation; that would explain the heated conversation I’d heard at the precinct the night before.  “So there is more to it than a burglary,” I said excitedly.  “What is it?  Organized crime?  Espionage?”

Teeger smiled uncomfortably.  “We’ve taken over the case because Congressman Garrison requested it, to ensure there is no threat to himself or the rest of his staff.  There’s no indication that there would be.  The Secret Service informed us of a few threats they’ve received recently, but none were thought to be serious.”

I nodded.  “What do you need to know?  I made sure to make careful observations.  I’ve been studying the field manuals since I got here.”

“Your statement was very good.  That should be all we need.”

My disappointed expression didn’t seem to affect him.  I tried a different approach.  “What do you think this was about?  It would just help to know why it happened.”

“In spite of the Congressman’s concerns, it looks very likely that the police had it right,” he told me.  “Christopher Weagle walked in on a burglar and was shot in a moment of panic.  The door had been kicked in and valuables were obviously missing from the house—no TV, computer, or phone, no wallet on the body.  We’ll have to wait for ballistics and fingerprinting to know if we have a suspect.  If not, we’ll keep checking up on anyone arrested for theft in the neighborhood.”

I looked at him questioningly.  “Brody said he’d quit his job very unexpectedly—by writing in, not bothering to tell anyone in person.  What if, if someone wanted to kill him, they took his computer to write a message that would explain his disappearance and staged the scene to look like a robbery?”

Now Teeger was looking annoyed.  “Of course we examined his resignation closely.  That was all done last night.  A Congressman’s request can get people working at odd hours.  Our analysts found that the language was a close match for the writing style of his internet comments.  His co-workers were sure it was his words.”

I wasn’t ready to give up.  “Everything in that place was meticulously organized.  The couch where I found him had two pillows on it—one on the far end, one in the center.  There was no pillow at the end where the body was.”

“So what?”

“So—that would have bothered me!  And this guy seemed even more tightly wound than I am.  I know it’s just a hunch, but—don’t you think, if there was a third pillow, the killer might have used it to muffle the shot?  And wouldn’t that be more likely if they planned to do it ahead of time?”

Teeger sighed.  “Annie, I know it’s tempting to try to make sense of a tragedy like this with theories that explain everything, but there’s not always a complicated story behind it.  I’ve seen hundreds of murders.  Most of them were simple.  This one looks like a man who ran into a burglar at the wrong time.”

“I know it’s difficult to encounter something like this, especially when you’re young,” Rodriguez put in.  “If you need counseling or any kind of support, let us know.”

There was no point arguing now.  She wasn’t offering the kind of support I needed.  “Thanks, but I’ll be all right.  I just wanted to understand it.”

Teeger nodded.  “If we catch the killer, I’ll make sure you’re informed.”

“You are thinking like a detective,” Rodriguez added.  “I know your internship ends soon.  You’ve been doing excellent work here.  One of our forensic labs in the District is looking for new interns this fall, if you want to apply.  I think your healthcare administration degree could be an asset for advancement in lab work.”

I smiled.  “Thanks.  I’ll work on it.”

I went back to my cubicle and started doing the usual daily tasks.  I kept doing them, with a break to eat lunch and make a couple phone calls, until exactly five P.M.  Then I walked out of the building and headed towards the metro station, the way I’d been going when Brody found me the day before.  Before I got far, I turned onto a side street and backtracked south until I hit the wide green swath of the National Mall.  I set out across the lawn towards the gleaming dome of the Capitol Building, shimmering in the hot summer air.  The museums and monuments of America’s capital city were all around me, but I couldn’t stop to see the sights.  I had a murder to solve.


	3. Advanced Political Science

My destination was one of the buildings around the Capitol that housed congressional offices.  It was less imposing than the great dome next door, but the white marble walls and columns matched nicely.  A security guard at the door confirmed my appointment and gestured towards a staircase.  With Congress out of session, the corridors were nearly deserted, my footsteps echoing up and down the halls.

When I found Colorado Representative Ross Garrison’s office, I was surprised to see it looked relatively busy.  Aside from a couple small rooms off to the side that looked occupied, there were a half-dozen staffers in the main room—five men and one woman, mostly around my age and as white as the marble on the outside of the building.  Not sure who to address, I approached the one sitting at the desk closest to me.

“Hi, I’m Annie.  I’m one of Christopher Weagle’s college classmates,” I told him in a singsong voice.  “I heard about the tragedy that’s happened, and I wanted to write something about his life for the alumni newsletter.  I was hoping you could tell me more about what he was doing before this happened, so our readers can sort of get a sense of his life’s work.”

The murdered man’s coworker chuckled at that.  “For the alumni of that third-rate school he went to?  Chris didn’t have much good to say about that place.  I have no idea why he’d want to go back there.”  He wore expensive clothes, a slick attitude, and an unpleasant smirk, and he seemed like he might have spent some time at Yale or Princeton and managed not to learn much.

“Go back?” I asked with forced cheerfulness, resisting the impulse to defend my school.

“Right before he died he wrote in to say he was quitting and going back to wherever it was he went to college.  So you can see nobody can understand what was going on with him.  If you want to know his work schedule, here.”  He grabbed a notebook from the next desk over and tossed it at me.

“What’s this?”

“His day planner.  Use that if you need something for your newsletter.  I don’t have time for this.”

I flipped through it.  It was filled with long lists of names, dates, and times.  Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except the fact that it was here for me to see.  “The feds didn’t take this?”

“That agent who came here to ask about Chris?  He just looked at it and left it here.”

I huffed at the thought of such an oversight.  Skimming through the last pages to be written on, I saw it ended with a bunch of appointments that were crossed out—mostly with other Congressional staff or campaign operatives, on dates starting yesterday and continuing a few days into the future.  Apparently Weagle had updated his planner when he decided to quit.  Since the planner was left in the office and he hadn’t shown up after e-mailing his resignation, he had made that decision earlier, maybe on his last day at work.  Most of the appointments from just before then were similar to the crossed-out ones—meetings with various minor political players and a few reporters.  The only obvious exceptions were two names that recurred multiple times in the last few weeks.  One was listed as “P. Lytar”—with an address the first time, just the name and time later on.  The other was “M. Jones, Smithsonian.”

I took out my phone and hastily photographed the relevant pages, returning the planner to Weagle’s old desk when I was done in case Teeger belatedly decided to take the case seriously.  “Thanks for your help, our readers will enjoy this,” I said by way of explanation, backing towards the door.  The lone woman on the Congressman’s staff tried to follow me.

“If you really want your readers to appreciate what Chris did, you should tell them what Congressman Garrison is doing to help Colorado’s businesses—“she tried to cut in.  I closed the door behind me to discourage further political talking points and hurried out of the building, wondering if I’d discovered witnesses, suspects, or irrelevant business meetings.

 

The address for P. Lytar corresponded to an office building in a commercial neighborhood, a tall square structure that looked almost exactly like the ones on either side and up and down the block.  Handing the taxi driver more money than necessary in my haste to get there before whatever office I was looking for closed, I ran to the front door and took an elevator to the tenth floor.  When the doors opened, I found myself in a hallway with a large window placed to showcase the view of the cement building across the street.  The hall opened onto several separate offices, one of which was labeled “Lytar, Yang, and Desperaux.”  I’d half expected to find it closed, but the lights were on and a receptionist with an impatient expression greeted me when I walked in.

“I need to see a P. Lytar,” I announced, hoping the illusion of confidence would warrant an introduction.

“If you want an appointment, we might be able to schedule something in a couple weeks.  Better to call back tomorrow.  Or should I call security instead?”

_Whoops_.  Maybe I should have taken some time to prepare.  I was searching for the words to make a dignified escape when a middle-aged man in a business suit emerged from a back room.

“You know her?” the receptionist asked.  He shook his head and looked at me suspiciously, but it was a victory.  Now I knew he wasn’t Desperaux or Yang.

“Mr. Lytar?  I won’t take much of your time.  I’m writing a piece for the alumni newsletter at Greendale Community College—“

“Their _alumni_ have a newsletter?  Then why don’t you tell the students who are still at that school to spend their time looking for a better education instead of criminally harassing successful entrepreneurs like A.Z. Rogers,” he said smoothly.  He muttered something to the receptionist and disappeared into the back room before I could ask for an explanation.  I took the hint and retreated to the hallway.

 

As night fell over the city, I rode the bus back to the apartment that still didn’t feel familiar, trying to figure out what significance Greendale had to one of the last people Christopher Weagle had met with before he was killed.  My school was a special place, but I had to admit it wasn’t special in a way that meant many graduates had their names on offices in D.C. high-rises.  Besides, I didn’t think Lytar’s reaction was personal.  He’d insulted Greendale calmly and instinctively, like a patronizing cuckoo clock.  He’d had that answer scripted.  And A.Z. Rogers was ringing a bell for me.

When I’d eaten dinner in the studio’s tiny kitchenette, I opened up my laptop and checked Greendale’s social media accounts.  I felt a wave of nostalgia seeing the comments from students and faculty—Leonard complaining about the cafeteria food, Vicki and Garrett advertising their new comedy show, Professor Duncan recruiting volunteers for his Duncan Principle study.  Scrolling through, I found what I was looking for.  Britta had posted the link, of course.

**Stop the Greendale Hills Resort Development!**

_If the corrupt A.Z. Rogers Hotel Company gets their way, the Greendale Hills Resort complex will destroy some of Greendale County’s most important prairie habitat and accelerate  urban sprawl and commercialization throughout our community!  We need students to sign our petition to show legislators that the people are more powerful than their campaign donors…_

I’d signed the petition before I left campus at the start of the summer.  A quick review of the news articles about the controversy revealed that the congressman Brody Leitz worked for was an opponent of the project, while Weagle’s boss was an ardent supporter.  A web search for “Lytar, Yang, and Desperaux” revealed that the office I’d visited belonged to a small lobbying firm.  It wasn’t hard to fill in the picture from there.  Weagle had been taking messages between his employer and A.Z. Rogers’ lobbyists.  It was a work meeting after all.

I sat around for a while and wondered if I should be bothering with this.  Weagle’s meetings with Lytar were shady, but in a way that was unfortunately commonplace in his line of work.  More to the point, without the FBI’s support I wasn’t likely to get any useful information by questioning the lobbyists, and Weagle’s colleagues weren’t looking much more helpful.  There was still the Smithsonian contact, but a museum seemed like a less promising place to look for criminal plots.  When I got tired of debating the matter with myself, I picked up my phone and called Shirley.  She’d been telling me about her adventures assisting a private detective, I owed her an update now that I’d gotten closer to a case than reading a file.

Shirley listened intently as I explained how I’d found the body and described the crime scene.  I didn’t elaborate about what I’d been doing since then, partly because the FBI didn’t want interns giving out details of their investigations and partly because of the potential embarrassment if my inquiries didn’t lead anywhere.  All I told her was, “They thought it might just be a robbery, but I’m not so sure.”

“You should trust your instincts, Annie,” she told me.  “You were doing real detective work finding that poor man before the scene went cold.  Did I tell you about the case I helped Mr. Butcher with last week?  We thought the client’s husband had just run away with another woman, but it turned out his business was a front for organized crime and…”

I let Shirley lay out the story in detail, making sure to point out the ways she had helped collect information and identify important leads.  After we said goodnight, I smiled to myself and went back to my laptop.  _I’d better get to work if I want to have a chance of keeping up with her_ , I thought, only half-jokingly.  I wrote an e-mail to my boss, asking for a day off to recuperate after my shocking encounter with murder.  _And what better way to spend a day in Washington than visiting a museum?_


	4. Nuances of Covert Surveillance

I’d seen most of the major museums on the National Mall in my first couple weeks in the city, but I’d never been inside the older red brick building known as the Smithsonian Castle.  The place had housed the whole Smithsonian Institution in its early days in the nineteenth century, but now functioned mainly as office space.  The staff in the lobby proved much more interested in helping unannounced visitors than anyone else I had dealt with in this investigation, and I was soon led to a small office crowded with old papers and photos, where I was introduced to an older woman named Marge Jones.  I gave her the now-familiar speech about writing for the alumni newsletter Greendale didn’t have.

“Oh, yes,” she told me.  “I was shocked to hear Chris was killed.  He’d come here several times with questions about some documents we’ve recently acquired.  They’re of great interest to Colorado’s early history and the Congressman he worked for was going to arrange for some educational partnerships with local schools to use the information.”

“What documents?” I asked.

“The English Memorial papers.  They were just donated recently, they’re still in storage waiting for some experts to review them more closely.”

“There’s an English Memorial Spanish Center at Greendale,” I blurted out, struck by the connection but unsure what it could explain.  “Named for a Portuguese explorer or something.”

“Exactly!  Here, I’ll show you some of our promotional materials for the exhibit,” she replied enthusiastically.  Without waiting for a reply, she got up and started down the hall, leaving the office door ajar.  _Might as well learn something_ , I thought as I turned to follow.

Marge led me to a room full of filing cabinets and bookshelves, with even more papers scattered around than in her office.  She pulled a small laminated poster off a shelf and handed it to me.  It read, _Coming soon—the English Memorial papers exhibit at the Museum of American History—an untold chapter in Spanish and Portuguese exploration in the Americas_ , printed over a picture of an ancient-looking book filled with ornate handwriting in a language I didn’t understand.

“We have some letters and such from Memorial’s early life,” Marge explained, “but the most exciting documents are the journals and maps from his expedition to New Mexico and Colorado in 1609.  They were just recently donated by his descendants, and historians haven’t had a chance to study them closely until now.  We’ll be able to reconstruct the expedition’s route in much more detail than before.  We’re bringing in some experts in local history to study them over the next few weeks, and then their findings will be part of the exhibit.”

I nodded.  “Thanks.  I’m sure there will be a lot of interest in this back at Greendale.”  _I wonder if I should start an actual alumni newsletter?  It would look good on my resume and—_ right.  Unsolved murder.  Probably the top priority here.

I walked back down the hall, leaving Marge in the room full of files reorganizing some papers.  The exhibit sounded interesting, but it didn’t seem like it would get me any closer to understanding Weagle’s murder.  Before I got as far as Jones’s office, I stopped in my tracks, suddenly suspicious.  Was the Congressman who was lobbying to hand over local wilderness areas to resort developers really so interested in connecting schools with obscure history exhibits?  Greendale wasn’t even in Garrison’s district.

I grabbed my phone and made a quick call to the Congressman’s office.  The young woman who’d tried to talk to me the day before answered.  When I asked for details about their initiative for local history education, she told me there was no such project.

Weagle had apparently lied about the reason for his visits here, despite their seemingly innocuous nature.  I wondered why that might be.  I kept wondering until I passed Marge’s office.

There were sounds of rustling and the soft clicking of a keyboard from behind the door.  Nothing surprising, except I’d left Marge in the office down the hall and she hadn’t passed me since then.  I crept up to the door and found it a little more open than it had been before.  I could see through the gap to the desk, where a young man wearing dark sunglasses, a blue backpack, and a sweatshirt much too warm for the weather was leaning over a computer.  As I watched, he unplugged one of those little USB drives from the computer, pocketed it, and stood up.  I stepped away from the door and hid in a little alcove surrounding a water fountain.  A moment later, the guy walked out of the office looking around like he expected to be busted by the feds at any moment, or maybe chased by tigers.  He headed down the hall away from the front door.  Once he was out of sight, I followed.  Around a corner there was a door that was propped open, leading out to a loading dock.  I hurried outside, afraid I’d lost the trail, but I spotted the guy walking down the street not far away.  When a bus stopped nearby, he headed straight for it.  I ran towards him and just managed to board the bus before it pulled away from the stop.  I sat a few seats behind him.  He didn’t seem to have noticed that I’d come from the same building he had.

 

The man with the blue backpack still looked nervous, but he didn’t do anything obviously suspicious as we rode away from the wide vista of the National Mall and into a built-up downtown area.  When the office buildings were starting to thin out and some houses were visible on the side streets, he got up abruptly at a stop and hurried out the doors.  I got caught behind a few other passengers and almost lost him, but when I reached the sidewalk I could see him walking briskly up the street a short distance away.  The FBI manuals I had been reading and re-reading during slow days at work all summer recommended that agents follow suspects from a distance, varying their pace and using indirect paths to avoid detection, and seek to blend in with the crowd in public places.

I took off down the street like I had a final in three minutes on the opposite side of campus.  Cutting off a few other pedestrians, I managed to get within a dozen yards or so before passing any alleys where my quarry could have thrown me off the trail.  A businessman stepped out of a doorway in front of me.  He wasn’t quite in my way, strictly speaking.  I elbowed him anyway, hard.  He felt the need to comment loudly, and the guy with the sunglasses and the USB drive looked back to see the reason for the commotion.  I ducked behind an ornamental tree that was as neatly trimmed as a freshly sharpened pencil and not much wider.

Blue backpack picked up his pace abruptly and turned at the next intersection, then immediately crossed the street.  I stayed on the near side and jogged until I caught up to him.  A half-block further on the street ended in a green wall of trees on the edge of a park.  The guy took a paved walking path that connected to the sidewalk.  Caught on the other side of the road, I headed directly into the woods, crashing through dense brush and scrambling over logs.  On a hot summer day, with green leaves seeming to occupy nearly every cubic inch of space from the ground up, it was more like a jungle in a movie than the open, sunny woodlands of the Rockies.  There was a startled squeal as a chipmunk bolted from my approach, followed by loud fluttering from a bird I couldn’t see through the vegetation.  _See?  Blending in with the crowd._

After a minute I managed to find the actual path, struggling through an especially dense stand of bushes to reach it.  The suspect had gained some ground, but he was still in sight up ahead.  When the path curved to the left a short distance further on, I lost sight of him behind the trees.  Hurrying around the bend, I almost ran into him before I realized he’d stopped walking.  I backed off a few paces and jumped behind a large tree trunk to watch.

Where the woods opened up into a shaded grassy lawn, a trash can sat next to the walkway—probably a temporary installation, there were a few canvas pavilions in the field, as if some outdoor event was about to start or had just ended.  The man I’d been following had stopped next to it and dropped his backpack on the ground.  He was hastily stowing a largish rectangular object in it—one of those tablet computers that were the trend a few years back.  Within moments, he zipped up the backpack, put it back on, and walked across the field.  I trailed behind him until he crossed the street on the far side of the park.  There he got in the line of people waiting at a food truck, paid for his lunch at the counter, and wandered off casually.

I lingered in the park while he waited in line, made a show of pursuing him, then dodged into a crowd of pedestrians and turned around.  Doubling back to the food truck, I bought a taco and carried it into the park to eat.  When I was done, I discarded the wrapper in the trash can where my new acquaintance had stopped mid-chase.

I couldn’t see anything in the trash can but the expected debris of uneaten food and empty cans and bottles that really should have been recycled.  I was about to turn away in disappointment when I saw that the bag was detached from the edge of the metal can on one side.  I kicked the garbage can over and pulled the bag out.  It made a rattling sound.

Feeling along the bottom, I grasped a small plastic object.  It was the USB drive he’d been using in Jones’s office.  I grinned with triumph; the little device was no more incriminating than the tablet he had no doubt transferred whatever file he was stealing onto, but people who aren’t action-movie heroes can find it hard to think clearly when they’re being chased.  And now I had a real lead.  What it could have to do with the Weagle murder, I wasn’t sure, but anything this suspicious happening around my witness had to be relevant, right?

My first instinct was to put the garbage bag back, but I could see some people approaching and I didn’t want to try to explain what I was doing.  Besides, a couple of squirrels were already eyeing the spilled pizza crusts and old French fries hopefully.  I left them to their meal and pocketed the evidence I’d uncovered.  Time to see what information someone wanted so badly.


	5. Computer Science and Evasive Maneuvers

Back at the apartment, I plugged the USB drive into my computer, half expecting to be confronted with data encrypted so only the NSA could read it or a virus that would make my laptop explode.  Instead I found a list of files organized like the school assignments I’d backed up on a similar device.  Computerized crime might be less exotic than I’d been led to believe, at least when it involved nervous thieves spying on museum officials.  Going through the documents, I found what looked like mostly internal information about the English Memorial papers.  At least that fit in with the Weagle case, but little of it stood out as a new revelation.  There was a design for the poster I’d already seen, some longer descriptions of the planned exhibit that might be drafts for press releases, and some cataloguing information about the documents that seemed to explain where and how they were stored.  I figured the culprit might have just copied any file with a name related to the exhibit, but which, if any, of them was the one he really wanted was hard to say.  The biggest surprise was the very last file on the list.  It had no discernible connection to either English Memorial or Greendale; instead it was a copy of a hotel reservation for the next Saturday night in Ocean City, Maryland.

Out of new evidence to study, I sat around for a while and thought about whether to report any of this.  In the end I decided to hold off for the moment.  All I had was an outlandish story and some mundane files that were copied illicitly.  The museum might not take it seriously, or might even suspect me of doing the copying.  After all, I’d been the one asking questions about English Memorial—with a cover story that could be easily disproved—just before the theft.  Better to inform them if I found something more concrete, and I had a good idea how to do that.

 

I finished the workweek doing the usual chores at the FBI, making sure to thank Julia for giving me the day off.  She declined to volunteer any information about the case in return.  Leaving work on Friday evening, I walked directly to the metro station, not having any new witnesses to question for the moment.  As I was getting ready to board the train, a blonde woman with sunglasses and a dark gray suit stepped in front of me so abruptly I tripped over her foot and fell painfully on the tiled floor.  She apologized tersely and helped me up.  “You dropped this,” she added, handing me the card I used to pay for public transportation.  Then she stepped out of sight as suddenly as she’d appeared, seeming uncomfortable with further conversation.  Annoyed but not badly hurt, I rode the train to my usual stop and walked to the apartment building.  When I was almost at the front door, I happened to glance backwards at a vacant lot across the street, a little patch of grass and wildflowers that was a pleasant exception to the paved-over landscape.  I gasped in alarmed suspicion.

Where the vacant lot ended at the wall of the adjacent building, a figure was standing still, pressed up against the bricks.  That would have been odd by itself, but this person was familiar.  From this distance I couldn’t be certain, but her hair and clothing perfectly matched the woman I’d literally run into at the train station.

I slammed the door behind me and ran up the stairs to my apartment, suddenly glad that I’d habitually installed extra locks on the door.  After a minute, I crept to the window and glanced in the direction of the vacant lot.  She was still there.

To calm myself, I tried to work out the explanation for all this.  The good news was, if someone was following me then I was probably on to something in my investigation.  The bad news was that I didn’t know who, what had alerted them, or how dangerous they might be.  The suit-and-sunglasses outfit seemed vaguely governmental, but without more information I couldn’t count on that.  If the feds didn’t like what I was doing they could question me at work without going to all this trouble.  The espionage theory I’d suggested to Agent Teeger in my excitement a few days back felt unsettlingly plausible all of a sudden.  _What if Marge is a spy using the Smithsonian job as a cover story, and there are coded messages hidden in English Memorial’s journal, and—_ OK, maybe I was getting ahead of myself.  There had to be a more plausible story behind this, right?

I wondered if I should abandon my plans for the weekend.  _No.  I found something that got people’s attention, all the more reason to think this is important._ I would just have to take extra precautions.  Those manuals I’d read said plenty about how to avoid surveillance, too.  But since I wasn’t sure who I was dealing with or what kind of resources they might have, it wouldn’t hurt to go a little overboard with the secrecy.

I opened the door to the apartment’s small closet.  On a shelf above my clothes were several neatly stacked and labelled plastic boxes, most of which hadn’t been opened much since I’d arrived here.  I picked up the one labelled “College Memories,” carried it to the bed, and took off the lid.  Looking at the contents, I smiled wistfully.  There were a variety of odd items, most not very practical, but things I’d wanted to have around when I missed Greendale.  I took out the whistle I’d carried when I volunteered for campus security, a vest that still had orange stains after repeated washings, my notebooks from that first Spanish class with the study group.  And there it was, at the bottom of the box—the little plastic card with the picture of a woman I didn’t know.

 

The next morning I walked from the apartment back towards the metro station, trying to look unconcerned.  My instinct was to hurry up and get on with my investigation, but I deliberately stopped at the café for breakfast and dawdled a bit before leaving, in case I might seem too purposeful.  Once I thought I glimpsed the same woman I’d seen the night before, a long way back on the sidewalk, but she was out of sight before I could be sure.  When I got to the train station I pretended to look at the schedules while I scanned the room.  I didn’t see her in the crowd.  Just to be safe, I took a wrong turn and doubled back a minute later, stealing quick glances around to see if anyone followed.  _There!_   Not her, but a black man with a shaved head and a similar outfit.  He had turned around just when I did.  Or I was pretty sure he had.  When I sped up a bit, he disappeared into the crowd behind me.  I was half convinced the incident was a coincidence when I saw the woman again, in the same sunglasses and a slightly darker suit than the day before, standing off to the side in front of me.  She stepped behind a pillar within moments, but this time I got a good enough look to be sure.  So there were at least two of them, taking turns following me to make it harder to detect.  All in keeping with FBI procedure, and a bit elaborate for a private citizen to arrange.  _What is it they think I’m going to find?_

I took a deep breath and boarded the next train.  I didn’t see either of them in the line behind me, nor did I expect to.  After a couple stops had passed by, I headed for the doors, making sure to drop my metro card on the floor behind me.

I wasn’t sure how much the subway fare was when you never officially finished your trip, but if the point of my first encounter with my new entourage had been to get information from the card then they were going to be pretty confused in an hour or so.  I got a taxi as fast as I could and had the driver change directions a couple times just to be sure we weren’t followed.  Then we headed out of the city.  I left the cab at a highway exit in the Maryland suburbs.  Taking a shortcut across a lonely patch of grass and the more extensive parking lot next to it, I made my way to a cheap car rental place I’d looked up online.  At the counter, I made a point of approaching the employee who was reading a magazine, asked for a rental in my best attempt at a Texan accent, and showed them the old driver’s license I’d retrieved the night before.  I paid the deposit in cash and left in a small gray car officially rented in the name of Caroline Decker.  I made a mental note to call later and warn the company about their lax security; the license I’d used to get into a bar nearly five years ago had surely expired by now.

It was weeks since I’d been outside the city, and once I was past the congested traffic in the inner suburbs the sight of fields and woods along the highway felt refreshing.  A few miles past Annapolis, the road reared up onto the longest bridge I’d ever seen and the waters of the Chesapeake Bay came into view underneath, fading into the hazy summer sky in the distance.  The surface was dotted with sailboats, and I thought of Troy, wondering what more distant seas he was crossing now.

Once across the bay I drove a long way through a landscape that was now decidedly rural, though there was still quite a bit of traffic going the same direction as me.  Out here on the coastal plain, more of the trees in the patches of woodland I passed were pines, reminding me of the forests of Colorado if I ignored the lack of mountains.  Finally there was another bridge over a smaller bay, and I left the highway in the resort town of Ocean City.  On a nice Saturday in August, the place was crowded with tourists.  Built on a narrow barrier island between the lagoon I’d just crossed and the Atlantic, the city extended for miles along the beach, as I learned while trying to find the address I was looking for.  It turned out to be at the far northern end of town—a motel, rather decrepit-looking but nicely located next to the beach, not very different from dozens of others I’d passed by except that the USB drive I’d taken from the trash can had a reservation at this one saved on it.  Getting out of the car, I looked around the parking lot.  No one I recognized nearby.  If those operatives were going to look inconspicuous among the beachgoers here they’d definitely need to change out of their suits.  Hoping I’d managed to leave them behind in the city, I headed for the lobby.


	6. Intro to Aquatic Conspiracies

Despite the abundance of tourists, I was able to reserve a room, though it was a floor above the one the museum thief might be in.  I reminded myself that I didn’t know for sure what the information I’d found on the USB drive was about.  Maybe Marge Jones would show up, it would turn out that the reservation was an extra file accidentally copied from her computer with the documents about English Memorial, and I’d have a day at the beach but no new leads.  Except, the file was a screenshot, something she would have had to go out of her way to save for some reason.  And it had been at the very end of the list, as if it was added separately.  I figured it was more likely that the guy who stole the files had been given the drive with the motel reservation already on it—to tell him where to meet someone, say a co-conspirator who had sent him to take those documents.

On the way to my room, I took a detour through the halls to find the one I needed to watch.  When I walked by trying to look casual, the door was open and a cleaning crew was working.  That was good; I’d arrived ahead of any suspicious characters.  I dropped off the backpack I’d packed with a change of clothes in my room and went back outside.  Over the sand dunes, I could see the blue of the Atlantic on the horizon.  I was tempted to just go to the beach and enjoy the weekend, but this was the best clue I’d found and I wasn’t going to risk missing anything.  Across the street on the inland side there was some open ground with bushes that offered decent cover.  I sat down behind them, took a little pair of binoculars out of my pocket, and trained them on the parking lot, waiting to see a familiar face.

It wasn’t long before I saw the man I was expecting, climbing out of a taxi and glancing furtively around without looking closely enough to notice me watching.  He even had the same blue backpack.  He hurried into the motel.  Now I knew I was onto something, but I had a new problem.  It was one thing to watch for him to arrive; finding out what he was doing here would be more difficult.  He’d seen me following him just a few days ago, so any contact risked alerting him.

I waited a few minutes and then left my hiding place and went back into the building.  I went up to his room and stood by the door for a moment.  I couldn’t hear any conversation; if he was meeting anyone they probably hadn’t arrived yet.  Then I went back outside and walked around the building, trying to find a place where I could see his room.  I spotted him looking out the window on the seaward side of the motel.  Backing up to avoid being seen, I sized up the vantage point.  He had a nice view of the beach, which also meant that he could be seen from the beach, but concealment would be difficult.  Even the fenced-off sand dunes had paths at regular intervals, from which anyone lurking nearby would be as visible as a highlighted word on a notebook page.  The only solution was to hide in plain sight.

I ran to a store down the street, worrying that some highly illegal transaction would happen while I was away, and bought some sunscreen, a hat and a beach towel.  Returning to the motel, I laid the towel on the sand at the top of the crowded beach and stole a glance at the suspect’s room.  He was sitting with his back to the window, and I saw no sign of anyone else there or anything unusual happening.

As it turned out, I was getting my day at the beach anyway, although it was less relaxing than it sounded given the need to stay in one place and stare at the motel as often as possible without making the hundreds of other beachgoers too suspicious.  I had the binoculars, but they would draw too much attention to my snooping; once in a while I used them to take a look at a passing shorebird in case anyone wondered why I’d brought them.  The birds at least were interesting, while my prime suspect spent the day in his room not appearing to do much of anything except occasionally stepping away from the window like he was trying to keep any waiting detectives both nervous and bored.  I finally dared to run out briefly to buy dinner and dashed back panicking about missing something, only to find him sitting in the same chair he’d been in when I left.  The sun set, the crowds thinned out, the beach became pleasantly cool in the sea breeze, and I was thinking of going back to my room and resuming my investigations in the morning when the door finally opened.

I barely caught a glimpse of the figure that came through the door before the man with the blue backpack walked over and blocked my view.  To my alarm, after a moment the door opened again and they went out of the room.  I hurried around to the front of the motel, where I saw them emerge into the parking lot.  Before they noticed me, I ducked into the shadows where a tree stood next to the corner of the building.  The new arrival was a tall man with a mustache, who looked a little older than the first guy.  They walked right past me, close enough to hear a moment of their conversation.

“Where’s the rest of this crew you’re talking about?” Blue backpack asked in an agitated half-whisper.

“Relax,” the newcomer told him calmly.  “This isn’t private enough.  Just walk with me and you’ll meet them.”

They were soon out of earshot, taking the path back towards the beach.  Much as I’d have liked to hear more, on that empty sidewalk I couldn’t walk with them unnoticed.  I waited until they were almost out of sight before following.  Once we were across the dunes it was darker; I crept up nearer to the sound of their voices, but they were talking softly and I still didn’t think I could get close enough to overhear much.  They kept walking at a fast pace, turning north along the beach.  I tailed them, keeping close to the dunes were the shadows were thickest.  They stayed closer to the water, their silhouettes just visible in front of the foam of breaking waves.  There were no crowds and no cover to hide behind; the darkness was reassuring, but I flinched if my footsteps made even the tiniest sound.  They didn’t hear me, though, not even when I stumbled on an uneven patch of sand and gasped involuntarily.  We walked a long way, the lights behind the dunes growing dimmer as the motels and stores gave way to vacation houses, until finally we reached an undeveloped area where the only lights were the stars, a few boats out on the water, and an occasional flicker of headlights from a road somewhere inland.

They had been quiet for a while, so when they stopped walking I had lost track of them in the darkness and got too close before I caught a glimpse of them.  I backpedaled, struggling to stay silent, and retreated all the way to the edge of the sand dunes.  From there I had a clearer view of them against the pale background of the surf.  They stood still for a moment while I waited for something to happen.

A light appeared suddenly behind the waves, the brightness startling in that dark night landscape.  With it came the sound of a motor.  Blinking, I recognized the shape of a boat—a motorboat, large enough to have a cabin built on top of the deck, that had been quietly sitting very close to shore with more regard for secrecy than safe navigation.  It slowly crept towards the beach until the bow was just past the breakers.  The taller man on the beach walked straight into the water, his companion following warily.  The waves were gentle and the water shallow enough that they didn’t need to swim.  A woman stepped out onto the deck and helped the two of them up onto the boat.  I thought I could see at least a couple more people behind the windows in the cabin, but I was too far away to get a good view.  I climbed up to the top of a dune and dropped to the ground behind the crest, hoping they hadn’t noticed me in the light now dimly illuminating the beach.

They gave no sign of realizing they were watched.  Instead, the guys I’d been following disappeared into the cabin and the boat backed away from shore, then turned around and accelerated out into the ocean like a mackerel that just saw a shark.  I managed to grab my phone and take a couple of pictures while they were still nearby.  As the sound of the engine faded into the distance and the light shrank to a speck on the horizon, I lay down on the sand and sighed in exasperation.  I sent a quick text to Abed:  _What kind of criminals have meetings on expensive boats in the middle of the night?_

I watched the boat’s lights disappear off to the east and wondered how long it was reasonable to wait in case they came back.  I knew I couldn’t really count on them returning to the exact same spot, but I didn’t want to admit defeat yet.  _Something_ highly suspicious was going on, but I had no solid evidence of anything but the theft of a few files.  I looked up at the stars, listened to the waves, and wondered whether the murder of Chris Weagle or some other unknown plot was being discussed on that boat.

 

I opened my eyes and blinked at the glaring light.  Envisioning returning watercraft crewed by scheming felons, I scrambled up and found myself looking at the sun, rising over the ocean and leaving a dazzling reflection on the water.  A seagull took flight a few feet away, startled by my sudden movement.  The beach was populated by flocks of sandpipers running along the edge of the water, a couple of people walking far off in the distance, and a dog splashing in the waves near them.  The boat I’d been watching for was nowhere in sight.

I brushed some sand out of my hair and scrambled down the dunes to the waterfront, embarrassed and annoyed at myself.  _If I want to be a detective, how could I let myself fall asleep on a stakeout?_ My suspects weren’t likely to show up now that it was light.  With no way of knowing if or when blue backpack would return to the motel, I reluctantly decided I should head back to the city before the bill for my rental car got out of hand.

As I reached the part of the beach with the vacation houses, I passed some early-morning surfers heading for the water.  I was already walking by inattentively when one of them called my name.  “Annie?  What are you doing here?”

I spun around, alarmed.  Had I been followed after all?  Then I saw the familiar face.  “Hey, good morning, hi!  Why didn’t you tell me you were in town?”

“Vaughn?”  I said tentatively, unsure of what to say to him after so long.  We’d kept in touch a little on the internet, but I hadn’t seen him since I told him I wouldn’t leave Greendale with him five years before.  “I thought you were still in Delaware.”

“This is Delaware, mountain flower.”

The nickname brought back a lot of memories from my freshman year.  “How far did I walk?”  I asked, laughing.  “I thought it was Maryland.”

“You’re only off by a mile.  The border’s right down there,” he explained, pointing to the beach ahead of me.

“Oh.  I’ve just been doing a little independent project for my FBI internship.”

“Do you want to go get coffee in town?  I’ve missed you, Annie,” he added in a softer voice.

I stood there, hesitant.  In truth, I hadn’t been missing Vaughn anytime recently, but I was lonely after a summer away from all my close friends, my investigation had yielded more questions than answers, and I could have used something else to think about for a while.  My phone buzzed.  I glanced at the text message, needing something to do while I gathered my thoughts.

It was Abed.  _Sounds like you’ve encountered a plot twist.  Pirates?  Sophisticated international thieves?  Aliens plotting to drain the ocean and take it back to their home planet?_

I smiled and looked down the beach towards my destination, then turned back to Vaughn.  “Thanks, but I should be getting back to work,” I told him apologetically.  I thought of something else.  “Hey, do you know where someone might dock a boat around here?  It might help with my project.”

He looked quizzical.  “There’s a few different places.  I could e-mail the names…”

“That’d be great!  Thanks, Vaughn.  It’s good to see you again.”  I gave him a hug and walked away, back towards Washington where I had a murder investigation and a surveillance team waiting for me.

 


	7. History of Espionage

On my way back, I split the ride into the city between two taxis to make it harder to trace my path.  When I finally stood at the door to my building, there were no watchers visible in the vacant lot across the street.  I did see a van parked down the road with an advertisement for a repair company painted on the side.  The paint looked fresh and the name of the business was unfamiliar—though that meant little enough in a big city I didn’t know well.  Still it was weird for it to appear on a Sunday.

The uncertainty was almost more unsettling than knowing I was still being followed.  I ate lunch, went back out, and took the bus to the city center.  There I wandered through a couple of museums I’d visited before and watched other patrons suspiciously.  If either of the people I’d seen before was tailing me they were hiding it well.

I went through the facts again, like I was studying for a test.  Chris Weagle had unexpectedly quit his job and then been murdered by an unknown party.  He had previously met with a lobbyist for unethical purposes, and with a historian for purposes that seemed innocent except that he lied about the reason for his interest.  A nervous young man had stolen information from the same historian about the same subject and then met up with a bunch of suspicious boat aficionados.  And after I started asking questions about the case, at least two people who acted a lot like law enforcement professionals began following me around.  That added up to a lot of unsavory goings-on but no clear thread to connect it all.

Regarding the English Memorial papers, Abed had as good a theory as any I could devise.  I didn’t think many pirates had lurked off the Delaware coast in a couple centuries and if aliens wanted to take the oceans they wouldn’t need information on seventeenth-century explorers, but sophisticated thieves might take an interest in newly discovered museum pieces.  The computer files might have been research for an attempt to steal the journals.  But there were still difficulties.  Historically interesting as the papers might be, the Smithsonian would have many other artifacts which were more expensive and easier to sell.  And I had no proof of such a plot or of any direct link to Weagle.  What I had was evidence of a very minor crime, a whole gang of suspects I couldn’t identify, and somebody after me for reasons I didn’t understand.

 

When I finally returned to the apartment that evening, the van was gone from the street.  That seemed reassuring until I went inside, looked out the windows, and spotted it in a grocery store parking lot behind the building.  Trying to stay calm, I went to the bedroom and sat down with my carefully arranged stuffed animals.

Something was wrong.  I stared, trying to pinpoint the source of the disturbance.  Then I saw Nathan the frog, sitting on the bed slightly out of place.  I remembered tucking him into Ruthie the kangaroo’s pouch.  I sprang up, scanned the room, and opened the closet.  Was I imagining things, or were the plastic boxes not quite arranged as they had been two nights ago?  I took out the “College Memories” box, telling myself I had to put Caroline Decker’s driver’s license back.  My old notebooks were stacked neatly but out of order, the vest Abed had worn as Han Solo crumpled up off to the side like a discarded candy wrapper.  I knew I wouldn’t be so careless putting things like that away.  Returning to the bed, I grabbed Ruthie.  In the pouch where I kept the stuffed frog there was instead a small hard object.  I took it out and found a little plastic cylinder.  I stared for a moment, then dropped it on the floor and stomped on it.  With the casing broken, I could see a tangle of wires.  _A listening device._   Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss the espionage theory.  I looked out the window again and saw the van still sitting outside the grocery store with no sign of activity, like a crocodile mimicking a floating log.

I took out my phone, photographed the smashed device, and almost dialed the FBI.  This had gone far enough.  But at the last moment I hesitated.  I already suspected it was government operatives following me—they could be from the Bureau themselves, though why agents would be sent after their own employee was unclear.  Calling the police would just be a slower way of telling the FBI once I admitted to working the Weagle case off the books.  I needed advice from someone I could trust.

He picked up on the first ring just like last time.  “Hi, Annie.  How’s your investigation going?”

I hadn’t told him what I was doing, but it wasn’t a surprise that he’d guess from my text earlier.  “Um, I’m not really supposed to talk about the case, but…Abed, I’ve run into one of those mystery plots you warned me about and I don’t know what to do.”

“What happened?”

“Someone’s spying on me.  They’ve bugged my apartment, followed me around.  I don’t even know why, but there’s already been a murder and I don’t know what kind of cover-up I could be messing with.”

He was uncharacteristically hesitant to reply.  “Usually those storylines are resolved by solving the case, but outside of movies it might be safer to tell the authorities—“

“Abed, I can’t because they might be the authorities!  They look and act like Hollywood spies and their resources seem over-the-top for criminals—“

“What do they look like?”

“Suits, dark glasses, not exactly covert but intimidating.  I’m watching a van outside now.”

“No, I mean describe the people you’ve seen.”

“Two that I know of.  I didn’t get a great look, but they’re young for law enforcement types.  A blonde woman and a bald black guy.”

“Did the woman keep her hair in a ponytail?”

I thought about it.  “Yes!  How did you—“

“I need to check something.  This may not be as bad as it looks.  Stand by for updates.”  He hung up abruptly, leaving me bemused.  Wondering what Abed was thinking, I watched the van for a few minutes.  Before long I saw a figure walk up to it and get in on the passenger side, and then it pulled out of the parking lot and was lost from view.  At that point my phone buzzed to announce another cryptic message: _Answer the door.  It’s safe.  Explanation forthcoming._

Under the circumstances, the sound of a large vehicle parking outside wasn’t exactly reassuring, but I needed answers and Abed seemed to know something I didn’t.  When someone knocked on my door, I pocketed a kitchen knife and then opened the door warily.  The two people I’d seen following me were standing outside, the woman who had tripped me at the metro station holding up a badge.  “Annie Edison?” she asked in a strained voice.  “I’m Agent Vohlers, U.S. Secret Service.  I owe you an apology.”

I stared at her, amazed.  “You can say that again!  The _Secret Service_ had me followed?  Wait—did that Congressman put you up to this?”  I gasped.  “Did he have his own aide killed?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know why Christopher Weagle was murdered.  Congressman Garrison demanded extra security after the incident.  Your involvement with the crime scene was noted and we observed your visit to his office under false pretenses.  At that point further surveillance was authorized because your name was on a watchlist.  Agent Keenlan and I were sent here as the original investigators in your case.”

“Wait, _what?_ ”

Up to then she had stood still and spoken in a stoic monotone, but now Vohlers gulped and looked away for a moment.  “It was my fault.  In 2011, I initiated an investigation at Greendale Community College to facilitate a relationship with Abed Nadir.  I connected with Abed when I visited the school with the Vice President’s security detail, but found myself unable to pursue a closer relationship than conducting surveillance from a distance.  Owing to certain…unique circumstances pertaining to the campus, my superiors allowed exceptional leeway to observe any purported suspicious activity in the area.  Your name was added as an associate of Abed’s.”

I lunged forward, seething.  Vohlers flinched and backed up all the way to the opposite side of the hallway, but she waved off Keenlan when he moved to intervene.  “You had me and my friends under illegal government surveillance for _four years_ just so you could have some…some…creepy spy-romance with Abed?  And nobody ever even _told_ me?  Is _that_ why they made me do those extra background checks when I got this internship?  You could at least have backed off a bit these last few days since you knew you were the one who got me in trouble!”

She winced.  “I haven’t seen Abed in some time.  I kept my distance when he was involved with Rachel.  I returned a couple of times after they broke it off, but he’d moved on from this long before.  When your name came up…I knew I should have conducted only minimal surveillance, but instead I acted out of jealousy.”

“ _Jealousy?_   We’re not—we didn’t—“

“You have—close contact, intimacy, you lived together, you even kissed once.”

“The context demanded—“

“I couldn’t manage any of that.  I suppose I thought outmaneuvering you in the field would somehow make me feel better about it.  I should never have let my regrets affect my decision-making.  When Abed called me today, he asked me to officially end my investigation of him.  I’m sorry for the intrusion on your privacy.”

I let out a deep breath and found myself feeling a lot more sympathetic.  Remembering the frustrations I had tried to hide even from myself when Abed and Rachel were dating, it crossed my mind that maybe my own reaction had been fueled by some kind of envy of Vohlers’ history with Abed.  That and, you know, years of Orwellian monitoring for totally illegal reasons.

“Does the FBI know what I’ve been doing?” I asked, speaking more softly now.

“Not from us.  Not the Congressman either.”

“I think I’m owed some information here.”

Vohlers nodded.  “The Secret Service is only acting as a security detail, not investigating the murder.  I can tell you that Garrison’s office is unusually active given that the House is out of session and there is considerable tension despite our informing them that we found no credible threats against them.  Several staffers are attempting to conceal certain aspects of their work.”

“Attempting?” I smiled slightly.

“Although it is outside the scope of our orders, it has come to my attention that these staffers are communicating extensively with one P.T. Lytar, a lobbyist known to represent several of Garrison’s major campaign donors.”

“Such as the A.Z. Rogers Hotel Company.”

“Yes.  We’re not aware of what was being discussed, but the covert nature of their work suggests the possibility of illegal activities.  Beyond that I don’t know how it relates to the murder.”

I sighed.  “Thanks for your help.  Just make sure you get me and my friends taken off your watchlist.”

Vohlers stepped forward and shook my hand awkwardly.  “I hope your investigation is successful.”

“Your countersurveillance skills are impressive,” Agent Keenlan put in.  “We followed that train through a lot of northern Virginia before we realized what you’d done.”

I laughed.  “I’d add that to my resume, but it might invite awkward questions.  Any chance you could let me know if the Congressman’s staff let slip more of their plans?”

Vohlers just nodded tersely and turned to leave.

 

I texted Abed back to thank him for helping me out, but couldn’t resist asking why he’d never told me about Vohlers.  He quickly replied: _Side plot with limited potential for long-term development.  She rarely contacted me after our initial meeting and I didn’t know she’d kept me under surveillance this long.  Didn’t think it was relevant to our character dynamic.  I called her back to say goodbye and she was grateful you were understanding._   I tried to figure out what that meant about our dynamic and how I felt about it.  When I got tired of that I reconsidered where the Weagle investigation stood.  The new information about Lytar’s contact with Weagle’s co-workers was intriguing, but I didn’t see a connection to the Smithsonian angle.  I thought about going back to Garrison’s office after work the next day to see if I could shake any information out of the staff.

 

It was a slow morning at work.  With all my pressing tasks finished, I found myself sitting at my desk studying the application for the lab internship Rodriguez had suggested I pursue.  Sighing, I set the page aside and looked at the second job listing I’d printed out for comparison.  It advertised a hands-on internship at the Sheriff’s Department of Greendale County, Colorado.  I knew it was considerably less prestigious than the post at the D.C. forensics lab, but I kept staring at the photo in the ad.  In the background, across the street from the Sheriff’s office, a corner of another building was visible—the Greendale library where I’d spent so much of the last few years.

My inner debate over my future plans was cut off when Rodriguez walked into the room and headed straight for my desk.  I was about to protest that I’d finished all the work she’d assigned, but she wasn’t there to tell me off.  “Agent Teeger wants to see you, Annie,” she told me.  “You can wait in his office, he’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“He just told me he’s caught Christopher Weagle’s killer.”


	8. Murder in Imaginated Dreamscapes

It took more than a few minutes before Teeger showed up.  I sat in an uncomfortable chair next to the desk and looked for something to distract me from wondering who he had caught and if all my adventures in the last week had been a waste of time.  _Still worth it_ , I thought, remembering the frustration of always hearing about exciting cases while doing office work.  I’d been in Teeger’s office many times, but always hurrying to deliver something.  In addition to the usual mess of case files and memos on the desk, there were a few framed pictures and some glass cases where he kept his coin collection.  I had thought it strange that he indulged his hobby at the office until I realized that an ambitious federal agent might well spend more waking hours there than at his residence.  He’d acquired a few new items, sitting on the desk to be organized later.  Many of the coins in the cases were old, but these looked ancient.  I picked one up, curious.  It was tarnished silver cut in an irregular shape, with some kind of shield crudely carved in the center and almost illegible Latin inscriptions on the edges.

Setting it aside, I took a closer look at the photos.  There was a wedding picture, fairly recent, of Teeger and a younger woman, standing in front of a ski slope that cut through a forest of spruce and fir on a steep mountainside.  The landscape made me think of home.  Next to the picture on the desk was a neat stack of little laminated papers, face down so nothing was visible.  I flipped one over.  It proved to be a promotional flyer with an American flag on it.  The text read “Leland Teeger for State Senate—Law, order, and a prosperous Colorado.”

I huffed in annoyance.  I hadn’t known that we shared a home state, but more importantly, the guy probably took the investigation so lightly because he was distracted by his new career plans.  It was also against the rules for current FBI employees to run for office, though there might be a loophole if he hadn’t officially announced his candidacy yet.

I hastily put the flyer back when I heard the door open.  Teeger walked in, nodded at me absently, sat down at the desk, and handed me a folder—a case file, though not a very long one.  “We’ve identified the culprit in the Weagle murder,” he announced.  “Here’s a copy of the file if you want to review it.  There wasn’t really much to the case.”

“Thanks for keeping me updated.”  I spoke carefully, but not without an edge to my voice.  “What did you conclude was the reason for the crime?”

“An unplanned shooting during a break-in, just as I told you before.  We matched fingerprints from the scene to a guy with a long record of burglary and petty theft cases in Maryland.  Name was Joe Malwae-Newport.  He denies it, but we have plenty of prints and we’re running some DNA tests to build a stronger case.  We had to release him for the moment, but his apartment’s being monitored and we should be able to get an arrest warrant when the results come back.”

The name was new to me.  Skeptical, I flipped through the file.  At the end was a mug shot of Joe Malwae-Newport.  I froze in shock.

I was looking at the face of the man with the blue backpack, the same guy I’d followed at the museum last week and on the beach over the weekend.  My mind raced to figure out where that left me.  Under the circumstances, it was surely a professional if not legal responsibility to reveal what I’d been doing.  The bureau might reprimand me for interfering without authorization, but that wouldn’t matter.  Revealing the killer’s connection to Weagle through the English Memorial papers would be a major break in the case, one that would seriously weaken the theory that the shooting was unplanned—not to mention the addition of a whole new cast of characters in the Delaware boat crew, even if I couldn’t identify them.  People would be amazed that an intern found an angle a top agent had missed.  Reprimand or no, I would have made a name for myself as a detective.

Except it was all wrong.  I still didn’t know what Weagle was doing at the museum.  I assumed that would be explained eventually, but I was still confident that the murder had been planned, and well-staged to look accidental.  And criminal record or none, I had a hard time seeing the guy who panicked when followed after stealing a few word documents as a skilled assassin.  I knew my doubts were based on conjecture as shaky as a skyscraper in an earthquake.  _Trust your instincts_ , Shirley had said.

I feigned a smile, thanked Teeger again, and took the case file to my desk to read.

 

I hadn’t seen any of the forensics team’s conclusions about the crime scene yet, but they were working with the burglary theory and hadn’t noted anything surprising.  Still, one of them had made a note that the trajectory of the bullet wasn’t quite as expected in such a scenario—it had hit the wall at right angles to the door.  If Weagle or the killer had just walked in, the shot should have gone either towards or away from the door.  Teeger had concluded that Weagle was awakened and walked into the living room after the culprit broke in.  I wasn’t buying it.  Somebody kicking down the door should have been enough to wake him up pretty fast in a small place like that.  And the missing items included his laptop, cell phone, and wallet—none of that stuff was in the bedroom?  Or did this supposedly panicked burglar stop to search the rest of the house after the shooting?

When it was time for my lunch break, I needed some space and went out to eat.  On the way out of the building I passed a supply closet along the hallway that had been sitting empty for weeks, awaiting some kind of renovation that was always being delayed.  An odd idea crossed my mind.

On my way back from lunch I stopped at a convenience store and found some orange masking tape.  When I got back I found nobody asking me to do anything, so I walked out of the office acting like I was running an errand and went back down the hall to the empty closet.  I turned on the light, locked myself in, and set to work applying tape in a precisely measured grid pattern to the floor, walls, and, with the aid of a stepladder borrowed from a bemused janitor, the ceiling.  In a couple hours, with some brief trips to wander through the interns’ workroom looking busy to avert suspicion, I had my own version of Apartment 303’s Dreamatorium.

I used some bits of paper to mark the relative position of the body, bullet, and furniture in Weagle’s living room on the grid, working from the detailed crime scene photos in the file.  When I was finished, feeling only a little silly, I announced: “Activating Dreamatorium Mark III, enhanced crime-solving version.  Render environment, Weagle murder scene.”

**Simulation 0001**

_A burglar breaks down the door to the guesthouse, thinking it unoccupied, and begins searching the living room.  The sleeping resident wakes up and walks into the room.  Startled, the burglar reaches for a gun and shoots him.  The victim falls near the kitchen door, missing the couch with its three neatly arranged throw pillows._

“End simulation.”  I rose from where I’d dropped to the floor, a few feet from the paper that marked the couch where I’d actually found the body.  As I’d expected, Teeger’s theory didn’t readily account for the details of the scene.  _Let’s try some other options_.

**Simulation 0017**

_A trained assassin kicks the door in and holds Weagle at gunpoint, then politely invites him to sit down on his own couch to be interrogated about corrupt deals with lobbyists and/or the early history of Colorado.  Satisfied or dissatisfied with his answers, the assassin finishes the job, grabbing a pillow for a makeshift silencer, and takes some valuables to make it look like a robbery._

At least now I had a body on the couch.  I looked at the paperclip I’d used to represent the bullet and frowned.  It had ended up going through the couch cushions into the floor, not the wall.

**Simulation 0049**

_Someone, either a burglar or an assassin, encounters Weagle in the living room and reaches for a gun.  He charges at them, ending up as close to the front door as the killer before the latter shoots him._

It could work if I admitted there didn’t have to be a third pillow.  I had to act out pulling the gun awfully slowly to make the timing fit, though.  Looking through the file again, I noticed that the bullet had hit the wall pretty high up, almost at ceiling level.  I stopped to put a thumbtack in the wall to mark the exact height and had to reach above my head even though I’d scaled everything down to match the size of the closet.  Not that committing murder in imaginated dreamscapes was an exact science, but almost all of my predicted bullet trajectories were coming in too low.  The killer needed to be aiming upwards…

**Simulation 0071**

_Weagle charges and succeeds in knocking the unprepared intruder over, then jumps onto the couch to gain the high ground and attacks with a pillow.  Terrified by the most ferocious pillow combat since the Pillowtown-Blanketsburg civil war, the burglar shoots him and he topples off the couch onto the floor.  The killer decides that the pillow is more incriminating forensic evidence than, say, the bullet and makes sure to steal it along with some valuables._

I picked myself up off the floor, knees and elbows sore from fake-dying on the concrete surface.  Now the bullet was in the ceiling and the body was back on the floor.  Because that was obviously the main problem with this otherwise totally plausible scenario.

**Simulation 0108**

_A co-conspirator in villainous political or Portuguese-explorer-related schemes visits Weagle.  They sit down to talk about their plans, one on the couch while the other prefers to sit on a pillow on the floor.  Weagle, tired of crime, announces that he’s quit his job in disgust and plans to reveal his colleagues’ corruption.  To prevent exposure, his erstwhile friend shoots him, takes the pillow that might have their DNA or fingerprints on it, and kicks the door on the way out to make it look like someone broke in._

It worked if I imagined a killer with a vehement aversion to chairs.  Searching for a better reason for the shooter’s location, I pictured the room again.  I’d just reenacted the crime from a spot near the bookshelf; maybe the culprit was reading?  I remembered seeing it when I first found the corpse—half-empty, with gaps in between some of the books.  Like the missing pillow I saw in my mind, another slightly disorderly anomaly in that meticulously arranged room.

**Simulation 0110**

_An intruder holds Christopher Weagle at gunpoint and questions him about…TBD.  This person demands something Weagle has kept hidden.  Learning or suspecting its location, they casually pick up a pillow and sit down to search the bookshelf, removing books until the secret item is found.  The young man watches from the couch, trembling with fear or plotting revenge or regretting his involvement in whatever started this chain of events.  The killer calmly shoots him from a sitting position, using the pillow to muffle the shot, takes the books (research on English Memorial, perhaps?) and carefully stages a break-in._

“End simulation.”  I held the paperclip up to the wall, right beside the thumbtack.  That was the best match to the actual crime scene I’d yet achieved.  Glancing at my phone, I saw it was after 5:00—time to leave work.  I was tired after running so many scenarios in a row, but I knew my day wasn’t finished.  I had a working hypothesis for how the crime unfolded; now I needed to talk to the FBI’s new prime suspect.


	9. Nocturnal Vigilantism

The apartment building where Joe Malwae-Newport rented a room was in one of the city’s rougher neighborhoods.  At night it reminded me of the streets around the apartment I’d been in before living with Abed and Troy.  The building’s walls of old brick directly bordered a narrow, crumbling sidewalk.  On the far side of the street, a police car sat motionless as it had for at least the last hour.  The officers watching the suspect’s residence would probably be tired, bored, and annoyed at the feds making them do busywork for a case the Bureau had taken over in a political play.  They’d be watching for someone leaving by the front door.  I doubted they saw me at all as I walked into the small, litter-strewn parking lot behind the building.

I’d already worked out which windows belonged to the accused murderer’s apartment.  Looking around to make sure nobody was watching from the sidewalk, I climbed onto the roof of an old car parked right next to the wall like a barnacle stuck to a waveswept rock.  From there I could just reach high enough to pull down the ladder to the fire escape.  I climbed up three floors, carefully holding on to the rusty metal railing, and knocked loudly on the window.

The lights in the apartment were out.  I could see part of a kitchen illuminated by the streetlights, the shadow of the stairs I’d just climbed slashing across it.  For a minute it looked undisturbed, then a door creaked and the guy I’d been following around the District and two states warily approached the window.

“Did Claude send you?” he asked softly, barely audible through the glass.

“I’m here to help,” I said, hedging my bets.

After a moment’s hesitation he pushed the window open and I climbed into the kitchen.  At that point he got a good look at my face for the first time.  He jumped nearly across the room with a panicked expression and came back brandishing a pocketknife.  I took it he didn’t have a gun on him.  But he would’ve gotten rid of the murder weapon if he’d shot Weagle.

“You!” he shouted.  “Did they send you to kill me?”

“Relax,” I snapped, struggling not to show fear.  I tried to play the part of a private eye in one of the movies I’d watched with Abed.  “Like I said, I want to help you, Joe.  What makes you think someone’s trying to kill you?”

“Somebody set me up,” he said frantically.  “I never heard of that dead guy, but the feds say they found my fingerprints.”

“Well then murdering you now would only make people suspicious, wouldn’t it?”

He calmed down slightly but held on to the knife.  “What are you doing here, then?”

“I’ve been working that murder myself and I have a feeling you might be telling the truth.  Put that down and let’s see if you can help me prove it.”

“So you climb up here and knock on my window in the middle of the night?”

“What, is it considered impolite to knock in your line of work?”

He flinched and slowly lowered the knife.  “I’ll admit I’m a thief, but I never came near that guy.  I don’t work in his neighborhood.  Too many rich people with alarm systems and private security.”

“So you didn’t want to rob him…but you had a shared interest in the English Memorial papers.”

He looked genuinely surprised.  “No one told me that.  Is that why they’re after me?”

“It hasn’t come up in the official investigation.  What were _you_ doing at the museum?  Is Claude the guy you’re working for?”

“My lawyer said not to talk about anything like that.”

I knew he’d been assigned a public defender.  It would’ve been more aboveboard to contact them before talking to Joe, but that would risk revealing my investigation to the Bureau.  “I’m trying to find out who really killed Weagle.  I need some information to go on here.”  He remained silent.  “I don’t suppose you might have fallen in with a gang of sophisticated international thieves?  Was Claude your friend at the beach or was he driving the boat?”

Joe gasped.  “How did you—I saw you following me in the park, not—“

“That was when I wanted you to see me.  I think this is yours, by the way.”  I handed him the USB drive I’d retrieved from the garbage can.  He finally set the knife down on the counter and pocketed the little device, watching me with a fearful expression.  I made a mental note to tell Abed that playing character archetypes had practical applications in the detective business.

“Claude is the leader.  He was on the boat,” he admitted.

“Who are they?  What did they want with you?”

“They reached out through a professional contact.  A crew of four—Claude, Viktor, Joaquin, and Brigitte.  I don’t know last names—for obvious reasons people don’t like to give out much information for these things.  To hear them tell it they’ve been pulling fancy heists all over Europe—antiquities, art, that kind of thing.  They paid me to take those files from the museum.  They won’t tell me what it’s for, but they want me as a lookout for some job they have planned.  Said one of their usual crew dropped out.  I usually stay out of this kind of elaborate stuff but they offered a lot and I needed the money.”

“What’s so important about the English Memorial papers?” I persisted.  “I mean, even if you took something like that wouldn’t it be hard to sell?  Anyone who knew why it was valuable probably would have heard it was stolen.”

“That’s what I said.  Claude insists he has a better plan.  I wasn’t in a position to ask for details.”

“And that’s all you know about it?”

“Pretty much.  I’m telling you, I’d never heard of this Weagle guy until the feds showed up saying I killed him.”

I nodded.  “One more thing.  Where exactly is this next job happening?”

“I don’t know.  They weren’t going to tell me until it was time.”

“And how were they going to contact you?”

He glared at me.  “They trusted me with this.  I can’t—“

“Did you touch anything on that boat?” I asked sweetly.

“Of course.  So what?”

“Did it occur to you that these highly skilled criminals offering you money for a nebulous job somehow connected to the man whose murder you’re accused of, who had access to your fingerprints, might have had something to do with setting you up?”

Joe thought about that for a while, then opened a drawer under the kitchen counter.  He took out a small object and handed it to me.  It was a cell phone—a cheap flip phone of an older model.  “They gave me this and said they’d text the location when it was time for the job,” he explained.  “Do you really think they sold me out like that?”

“I don’t know,” I told him.  “It’s not a bad theory but it leaves some loose ends.  Don’t tell anyone I was here, got it?”

“Got it.”  He gave me a quick description of each member of Claude’s crew and I climbed back out the window.

 

At the apartment after work the next day, I checked my email and found that Vaughn had sent me a list of marinas near where Joe and the man he said was called Viktor had boarded that boat.  I started making calls, but the people answering the phone either couldn’t recall any customers meeting their description or refused to give out information.  With nothing to show for the evening’s work, I went back to my laptop and finished up my applications for fall internships, wondering which one I’d choose when it came time to decide.  I could hear rain starting to fall outside; a good night to stay cozy indoors and watch TV.  The new season of _Inspector Spacetime_ was available online.  I started it up, wanting something familiar from life at Apartment 303.

I watched a couple episodes, but it only made me lonelier.  I wanted to be watching this perched on the arm of Abed’s chair in front of the TV with Troy nearby in the other chair, not sitting at a kitchen table far from the rest of the Greendale Seven.  The murder still held my attention.  It occurred to me that there were a couple things I might want to confer with my friends about.  It wasn’t so late in Colorado, I could still call.

I tried Britta first.  “Hey, Annie,” she greeted me, sounding a little tense.  I heard a voice in the background and Britta shushing the other person.

“Roommate problems?”  I asked.  Britta’s efforts to find someone to split the rent with Abed and I absent had been causing trouble all summer.

“Oh, not right now.”  She seemed to hesitate.  “ _So_ , how’s your big break in the forensics business going?” Britta added, in a tone far more enthusiastic than I expected to hear her use when discussing federal law enforcement.  I brushed the weirdness off, having more important things to puzzle over than whatever was making her act so awkward.

“It’s been a slow couple days at the office, but I find things to do.  I’m missing home.  What are the cats doing?”

“Oh, they’ve been napping on the couch and coming in here once in a while to glare at me cause there’s not space on the bed.”

“Awwwww!  Good to hear they’re the same as ever.  Are you still protesting that Greendale Hills Resort development?”

“Yeah!” she announced, getting more animated.  “We had our biggest rally yet, but the corporate judges are refusing to shut down construction.  We’re organizing a vigil on campus and—“

“Well, I have some Washington gossip you might like to hear.  The developer’s lobbyists have been having underhanded meetings with a local Congressman’s staff.  Garrison from the 8th district.  Don’t tell them where you heard it, but if your activist buddies call the press they might create some trouble for the company.”

“Thanks, Annie!  You want more details on what they’re up to?”

“Well, there’s an idea I was wondering about but it might be more a question for Jeff.”

“Jeff?”  There was a quiet moment in which I could hear agitated whispers in the background.

“I just had a question about the legal aspects—“

“Oh.  Well he would be—I guess you should call him.  You know, if he’s up this late.  Not that I’d…can I call you back?”

I rolled my eyes, a little surprised that I wasn’t more upset.  Personal history notwithstanding, it was nice to have at least one mystery solve itself in the space of a single conversation.  “Britta, I’m over getting jealous about this and my question might be a bit urgent so why don’t you just hand him the phone?”

There was a brief silence.  “Annie, I didn’t mean for you to find out like that—“

“It’s okay.  Really.  It’s not my business.”

“If you say so.”  There was another moment of unintelligible background dialogue.

“Annie?”  Jeff Winger’s voice sounded nervous.  “You, uh…you had a legal question?  I meant to talk to you about—“

“Jeff, don’t worry about it.  If this works, I’m happy for you.  You don’t need to explain anything.”  I found it was true.  Our friendship would always mean a lot to me, but I no longer felt the need to pursue anything more with Jeff.  Nor was I particularly jealous of Britta.  _Not like I was of Agent Vohlers_ , I remembered uncomfortably.

I brought my mind back to the reason I’d called.  “About that resort development we’re protesting.  What do you think would happen if historic artifacts were discovered at the site?  Say something of unusual interest, maybe with some documents that corroborate it?”

“Right…that’s not really my field of law, but I know my courtroom theatrics.  Anything flashy turning up would be a great chance for the opposing lawyers to talk a judge into issuing an injunction against the developers.  If they found something important they’d probably have to wait while it was studied and preserved.  After that the courts might let them go forward, but with the kind of public opposition they’re getting it might be enough to stop the whole thing.  Any particular reason you’re asking, or are you studying for a law degree on top of your FBI job?”

“Just some research for an independent project.  Thanks for the help.”

“Well, don’t get too busy in Washington.  We all miss you at Greendale.”

 

I went to bed pondering what to do with everything I’d learned and the things I couldn’t prove.  I didn’t have a ready answer, but the sound of the rain outside lulled me into dreams of a rain of paint and a kiss.

I was awakened abruptly by the buzz of a phone.  The streetlights lit up narrow stripes of the room between the blinds; outside it was raining harder than before on deserted streets and sidewalks and rooftops.  I grabbed my phone in frustration, thinking Jeff or Britta were unnecessarily worried about my reaction and had forgotten how late it was on the east coast.

Instead there was nothing on my phone—no messages, no calls.  I heard the buzzing sound again.  Remembering the events of the previous night, I scrambled across the darkened room to the table where I’d left Joe Malwae-Newport’s phone.  A text message from a blocked number showed on the screen—an address in Maryland, with the postscript “20 minutes.”

I grabbed a raincoat and ran out into the night.


	10. Elaborate Heists 101

It took longer than twenty minutes to call a taxi and reach the suburbs.  I had the driver drop me off on a side street a couple of blocks from the address I’d been given.  Making my way back towards where Joe was supposed to meet his employers, I found a gas station along the highway, surrounded by other businesses and an apartment building.  Across the road were some trees, opening up at one point to reveal a sprawling, futuristic-looking building beside a dimly lit parking lot.  A glance at the map function on my phone confirmed my first guess: the place was a storage warehouse for the Smithsonian.

Joe’s friends weren’t where they’d claimed; the gas station was empty of customers.  Staying back from the bright streetlights, I looked warily around and caught a glimpse of motion in the shadow of the trees across the road.  Pulling the hood of my raincoat low over my face, I crept closer.  There were four figures standing around a small metal structure, probably some kind of utility installation.  I wondered if they would be cautious enough to call off their plan when Joe didn’t show up.

Apparently not.  As I watched, one of them pulled a little door on the metal box open.  A flashlight flickered in the darkness.  I dialed nine-one-one on my cell phone and reported a burglary in progress.  As the operator told me to stay on the line and keep away from the suspects, I saw them back away from the structure.  There was a brighter flash of light, a loud boom, and the streetlights went out abruptly.

“They just cut the power!” I half-yelled, half-whispered.  “Listen to me.  There’s a Smithsonian storage facility just off the highway, that’s their target.  This is probably going to be a well-planned heist and they could be dangerous.”  I hung up before she could give me any more warnings.  They hadn’t noticed me, but they’d have assumed that causing a power outage would draw attention.  They were counting on being out of there with the English Memorial papers before the police could respond.

I hurried across the road, hoping the criminals wouldn’t see me.  In the sudden darkness I’d lost track of them, and by the time I got to the last place I’d seen them they were out of view.  Then, over the sound of the rain, I heard rustling branches and soft voices coming from the woods nearby.

Approaching cautiously, I found a little path among the trees.  The voices sounded like they were some distance ahead of me, so I followed.  Soon there were lights visible past the woods; the warehouse was still partially lit, presumably by a backup generator.  _Is the power outage just a diversion?_   I could make out the lines of a chain-link fence between me and the building, and the shadows of the four burglars standing next to it.  One of them was holding a set of garden shears.  As I watched, they cut a small hole in the fence and climbed through into the complex.  I waited until they were almost out of sight to emerge from the woods.

Peeking through the fence and hoping the shadows of the trees would conceal me, I saw the thieves gathering next to a corner of the building.  They’d attached a rope to the wall, and one of them was climbing up holding what looked like a drill.  Within moments, the climber had removed a small piece of metal and disappeared into the building.  They’d found a way into some kind of vent.  The other three hurried up the rope and vanished in turn.

When they had gone, I climbed through the hole in the fence and slowly walked towards the building, hoping to spot a security guard.  None appeared; I thought of all the effort the study group had put into planning our rescue of the Dean when Chang took over the school.  Judging by how quickly they’d broken into the building, Claude’s crew would have carefully planned every step to minimize the chances of being seen.  No one else was likely to pursue them in time to stop the heist.  I made my way across a driveway and a bit of lawn turning into a swamp in the rain, and then I stood under the wall that had swallowed the thieves.

The grate that had covered the air vent was on the ground where they’d left it, but the crew had been careful enough to pull up the rope.  The vent was about seven or eight feet above the ground, tantalizingly close but out of my reach.  I jumped up, barely got my hand on the edge, and slipped.  Next I tried to take a running start and crashed face-first into the wall.  On the third try I was able to hold on to the edge of the vent long enough to grab hold of the rope with my other hand.  I pulled myself up and scrambled inside, hoping my first attempts hadn’t been heard.

The air vents in the Smithsonian warehouse were about the same size as the ones at Greendale.  I’d used those to maneuver in secret during paintball; Chang had even taken up residence there at one point.  There was enough room to crawl around, though not comfortably.  The problem was that it was too dark to see much and I didn’t know where to go.  I followed the passage until I ran into a barrier.  It felt like there was space on either side.  As I lay there trying to choose a direction, I heard muffled voices and a metallic clang from the left.

I crawled towards the sound for what felt like a long way under the circumstances, until a little light began to show through another entrance—a small rectangular gap in the wall that had probably been covered by another grate until a couple minutes before.  I slowly slid over to the opening like a cat creeping up on a string.  The view was of some big metal cabinets, a tiled floor, and no burglars.

I jumped down from the vent much more easily than I’d climbed in.  I found myself in a vast, starkly geometrical room half-illuminated by dim, reddish fluorescent lights, with rows of ceiling-high cabinets extending far into the distance.  Curious, I opened a nearby drawer.  The contents looked like a lot of oddly shaped rocks until I picked one up and found curved, serrated teeth attached to it.  I was holding part of the skull of a dinosaur.

Returning the fossil to the drawer, I walked stealthily down the row of shelves, on the lookout for any sign of Joe’s co-conspirators.  To one side, the corridors ended in a distant wall of glass.  Thinking I heard a whisper, I headed that way.  Drawing near the glass, I saw a series of partitioned rooms on the other side, the walls lined with smaller cabinets.  Peering around the corner of a shelf, I spotted an open door.  Behind it, three men were rifling through the cabinets, taking out some old crumbling papers and wrapping them in plastic bags.  I recognized one of them as Joe’s friend from the beach.

There was a soft sound of footsteps and a menacing click.  I spun around to see a woman about my age aiming a fierce look and a revolver at me.  “Freeze right there and explain what you are doing here,” she said coldly, with an accent that might have been German.  _Brigitte_ , I recalled from Joe’s description.  “You don’t look like building security.”

_Ok, Annie,_ I told myself.  _You’ve had lots of paintball guns pointed at you before.  You can handle this_.  That wasn’t exactly the same thing, but somehow it stopped me from panicking.  “Let’s just say we have some mutual acquaintances,” I told her, hoping they’d be more willing to hear me out if they thought I was a fellow criminal.  “Claude will want to hear what I have to say.”

Brigitte glared at me skeptically, but gestured toward the room where the other thieves were at work.  I walked over with my hands up and she followed a few feet behind, keeping the gun pointed at my head.  When we got near the door, the three other burglars looked up in alarm.

“Who is she?” The oldest man snarled in a French accent.  I figured he was the leader of the gang.

“I caught her spying on us.  She says she has information for you,” Brigitte answered.  She was standing closer to me than she should have, but her finger was still on the trigger.  I stood still and watched carefully.

“Anybody wonder why your new pal Joe didn’t show up for this little caper?”  I asked them in what I hoped was a cheerful voice.  That was answered with a lot of what were probably impolite words in several languages.

“So we offer that guy more money than he’s seen in his whole career of petty break-ins and he sells us out?” a younger man in the corner of the room said angrily.

“I don’t buy that from him,” the tall man with a mustache I’d seen in Ocean City replied.  “Our boss, on the other hand, I’d expect anything—“

“ _Quiet_ , Viktor!”  Claude snapped.

“Joe’s not here because he’s too busy being accused of murdering a congressional staffer,” I explained.  All four of them exchanged looks of bewilderment.  _If they’re faking, they should give up crime to form a theatre troupe_.  “He insists he was framed.  If that’s true, you’re all high on the list of people who had the opportunity to set it up.”

Claude stared for a moment as if deciding whether to take me seriously.  “We didn’t kill anyone,” he said finally.  “That’s not how we do things.”

“I suppose that’s just a prop, then?”  I gestured at Brigitte’s revolver.

“A precaution,” she answered.  “You can’t trust anyone you’re doing business with in this job.”

“Like this boss Viktor mentioned?”  They all glared.  “Will you let me get my phone without being shot?  I want to show you something.”

Claude nodded.  I took the phone out of my pocket, opened a web page, and held up the screen for the thieves to see.  Gathering closer, they all stared with mixed recognition and suspicion at the promotional photo advertising the lobbying services of P.T. Lytar.

Brigitte, in an awkward position to see the picture, leaned over for a better look.  The gun drifted a couple inches to the side, now pointing past me into the rows of cabinets.  Seeing an opportunity, I let go of the phone.  It clattered on the floor while I jumped back, away from the crowd.  Brigitte spun after me, but I grabbed her wrist and twisted it before she could aim the gun.  She stomped on my foot twice; I winced but held on.  Pivoting back towards her, I hit her in the face with my free hand.  She stumbled backwards and lost her grip on her weapon.  Diving to the ground, I came up with the gun before the other burglars could get close enough to interfere.  I backed off behind a cabinet while they retreated into the glass room.

Huddled behind the wall of precious artifacts, I took a few deep breaths to calm myself, realizing with relief that the thieves weren’t eager to continue the fight.  When I felt ready to appear confident again, I put the revolver in my hip pocket and walked into the room.  “Being held hostage kind of ruined the conversation.  Now we can just have a nice friendly chat,” I said sarcastically.  I picked up the dropped phone.  The screen was cracked.  _The FBI had better reimburse me for that_.  “What exactly does this guy want with English Memorial’s journals?”  I asked, gesturing to Lytar’s photo.

The younger man, Joaquin, was the first to speak up.  “We didn’t know who he was.  He just set up a meeting through a contact.  We assumed he was after the treasure, same as us.”

“The treasure?”

“You don’t know the stories?  When English Memorial started his expedition, he had grand plans for starting a new colony, with himself as governor.  He thought he’d get rich from it eventually, but he took along a lot of supplies and a lot of his backers’ money to help get started.  Well, by the time they got to Greendale their supplies were running low.  The locals knew what had happened everywhere else explorers showed up and they told Memorial to get out in a hurry, or else.”

I nodded.  The Smithsonian press releases had told that much of the story.  But he wasn’t finished.

“So they had to run, and carrying all that stuff they’d brought would just slow them down.  The story goes, Memorial buried his money and valuables, away from his camp so even his companions wouldn’t know where it was, and made a map so he could retrieve it when he returned to complete his plans.  Well, he made it back to the Spanish missions in New Mexico, but after a disaster like that no one was going to fund a second expedition.  So English Memorial’s treasure stayed in Colorado, and no one knew how to find it…until his private papers turned up in a museum collection.”

The story was intriguing, but I suspected there were more mundane motives involved.  “You’re not after the journals to sell them, you think they’re the key to your treasure hunt.  So Lytar met with you because…”

“He offered us inside information on the museum and financing to prepare for the job, in exchange for a share of the treasure,” Claude explained.  “We were supposed to bring him the journals before the Smithsonian’s experts came to study them, so that no one else would find out where to look.  I don’t see what this has to do with your murder.”

“Lobbyists tend to get their money from less picturesque sources,” I told him.  “I don’t think Lytar wanted to look for buried treasure; he wanted to make sure no one found it.  It might interest you to know that one of his most important clients is a developer trying to build a controversial resort near Greendale.  Suppose that the construction crew already found English Memorial’s stash, by accident.  The information that they were building on an important historic site could have put a stop to the whole project.  So they wanted to make sure no one heard about it…which meant they couldn’t have Memorial’s journals released to the public.”

“So what?  He wanted the journals stolen just to hide them?”

“And the political operative who was helping him ended up shot, with Joe taking the fall for it.  Maybe Chris Weagle had second thoughts.  Maybe he was just a loose end who knew too much.  So tell me, what do you think would happen to you once you delivered the papers to him?”

“And how is it that you are supposed to have learned all of this, and we are supposed to trust you?  Shouldn’t we assume that you are the law, trying to fool us into surrendering?”

“Do you think I followed you in here alone because a bureaucrat authorized it?  I _have_ been investigating that murder, more thoroughly than anyone official has.  I know Weagle was meeting with Lytar and researching English Memorial.  I know he worked for a major supporter of the resort project.  The fact that he put you up to this connects the dots pretty neatly.”

“So all you really have is speculation, then?”

“Did I mention I’ve already seen some of that treasure you’re so interested in?  If you can come up with a better story to explain it, go ahead and take your chances with Lytar and whatever muscle someone with his connections can hire.  Or you can put those journals back, get out of here before we all get in a lot of trouble, and look for work with a more trustworthy crime boss.”

Claude thought that over for a moment.  “Get pictures of all the maps,” he ordered.  Joaquin and Viktor started taking folders full of musty papers out of the bags and returning them to the drawers, snapping a few pictures on their phones as they went.  When one small, hastily drawn map seemed to catch their attention, I went over to get my own picture, just in case it was important to the case.  As the thieves got ready to leave, assuring me they weren’t taking anything but information, Brigitte handed me a sheet of paper with an address on it.

“That’s where we were supposed to deliver the papers,” she explained.  “I always knew that guy was playing games with us.  Whoever you’re working for, tell them he’s the one they should be going after, not us.”  She turned and led the way back towards the air vents.

 


	11. The Art of Murder Solving

The alley where the meeting was supposed to take place was just a few blocks away, but it felt a lot further than that from the sleek, high-tech warehouse.  The narrow walkway sliced between a block of apartments and the back walls of some businesses that were closed at this hour, all them old and in poor repair.  The rain-soaked pavement gleamed in the harsh glare of the streetlights at either end, the light only making the shadows cast by trash cans and the corners of buildings more impenetrable.

I’d parted ways with Claude, Brigitte, Viktor, and Joaquin a few minutes earlier, watching their getaway car speed off down the highway as the sound of sirens drew nearer.  I hadn’t waited around to talk to the police when they reached the museum.  If I told them about the meeting, they would set up an elaborate stakeout that risked alerting Weagle’s killer, if he was still there after the time it took to prepare.  With little hard evidence and my best witnesses being fugitives from the law, this meeting was the best way I could see to corner the culprit.  I hoped it was as easy to get real murderers to monologue about their crimes as it was with movie villains.

I walked down the alley slowly, alert for signs of an ambush, trying to pick out any sound over the constant noise of the rain.  I thought I saw a hint of movement in one of those shadowed corners ahead.  “Mr. Lytar?” I called out.  “I visited your office last week.  A bunch of criminals sent me to talk to you about some old journals.”

“Not Lytar, Annie,” a familiar voice said from the shadows.

It would have been easier if it was Lytar.  Still, I smiled with grim satisfaction.

“Not Lytar,” I agreed.  “The lobbyist wouldn’t want to get his own hands dirty.  Better to have someone on the payroll who knew how to get rid of inconvenient witnesses and how to cover it up.  So what was the deal?  Money, support for your little venture into politics, and a few trinkets from English Memorial’s treasure for your collection?  You know, you should really be more careful what you leave lying around on your desk.”

Agent Teeger stepped out into the light, his face almost hidden by a wide-brimmed hat and a trench coat.  Abed would have appreciated the anachronistic costume, it really helped set the scene.  He looked more amused than alarmed.  “You should really be more careful about attending 3 A.M. meetings in alleys.  I mean, it’s very impressive work and I’ll admit I didn’t expect you to cause trouble, but there’s a reason we don’t encourage interns to play detective.  I guess you’ll make a good example for the next crop.”

“Well, that’s more professional advice than you’ve given me in the past two months.  Don’t forget, the lowly intern found you out.  What did you have against Weagle, anyway?  Or what did your bosses have, since you just run their errands?”

“The lobbyist wouldn’t dare do this without me!” Teeger snapped.  “Weagle was supposed to track down information on the journals while I found some old suspects who were suckers for a treasure hunt.  Lytar panicked because the kid supposedly got cold feet about the plan.  More likely he decided he wanted the treasure himself.  His family started a company that tanked and couldn’t fund his accustomed lifestyle anymore.  You know what’s hilarious?  When he got a look at some pictures of the documents, he was convinced the treasure was underneath that pathetic school you both went to.  The resort guys found the explorers’ main camp, but the stash of gold was hidden right under your feet all along.  Probably worth more money than the whole school, from everything I’ve heard about it.  Maybe when I’m governor I’ll turn the place into a garbage dump.  Be a good excuse to dig it up.”

Apparently the monologuing thing did work.  “How do you figure you’ll manage that now?” I asked him.  “Your treasure hunters know it’s a set-up and they left the journals in the museum.  The resort development won’t be happening.  How happy do you expect Lytar and the Congressman to be about that?  Think it’s likely they’ll protect you when they need a fall guy?”

As Teeger got closer, I could see the outline of a gun in his coat pocket.  He scoffed at my argument.  “I have too much dirt on Lytar for him to mess with me.  And as far as the Congressman knows, I’m just the guy who caught his lackey’s killer.  That should be worth an endorsement.”

“I see.  And how do you propose to keep this a secret?  The burglars are on their way to safety, they know enough to start some inconvenient investigations.  And if you paid any attention to my work at the bureau you’d know I keep careful records.”  In fact, in all the excitement I’d been less thorough about taking notes than usual, but there was enough to provide some leverage.

Teeger just chuckled.  I backed up, but he kept following as he talked.  “I don’t expect that gang to put much effort into involving the proper authorities.  Besides, I think I’ll make it look like they killed you.  You should be grateful, you’ll come across as the hero who paid the price for trying to stop the museum heist, even if you were pursuing crazy theories no one will take seriously.”

He came to a stop about ten feet in front of me with a hand hovering near his pocket.  I stood there, arms loose at my sides, waiting to see if he really intended to kill me.  Suddenly, without warning, the FBI agent’s hand moved with practiced precision.  I reacted on pure instinct before I had time to think.

It wasn’t really a contest.

I had the revolver I’d taken from Brigitte trained on him before his gun was clear of the pocket.  Teeger froze in place like I’d hit the pause button on a video, a shocked expression gradually appearing on his face.

“Drop that on the ground.  Slower!”  I warned him.  “Now kick it to me.  _Kick_ , don’t reach.”  He complied, looking like he couldn’t quite comprehend this turn of events.  It wasn’t his fault.  FBI interns didn’t do field training.  He had no reason to know about that part of my skillset.  “If the Bureau wants its agents ready for anything, they should make them play paintball at Greendale,” I said by way of explanation.  I picked up the gun.  It was a small semiautomatic that looked like the same type of weapon the ballistics report said had killed Weagle.  Teeger had been careful enough not to use his bureau-issued firearm, but maybe not careful enough to get rid of the illegally acquired handgun between murder attempts.

“You can’t do anything if I walk out of here,” he told me, regaining a fraction of his previous composure.

“Go ahead.  I wasn’t planning on it.”

He backed up a few paces, then turned and ran down the alley.  I watched patiently.  When he got near the end, there was a sudden burst of light from ahead. 

“Freeze! Secret Service!”

Two people emerged into the alley, guns leveled at Teeger.  I grinned in triumph as they cornered him against a wall.  While Keenlan handcuffed the rogue agent, I walked up to Vohlers and waved hello.

“Nice timing,” I told her.  “Did you get all that?”  I held up the cell phone I’d had in my pocket.  I’d had a call going and the speakerphone on for the whole conversation.

“Yes.  Excellent work, Ms. Edison.  I’ll have the recording sent to the Bureau promptly.”

I handed her the two guns I’d acquired over the course of the night.  “People keep giving me these,” I joked.  Her usual stoic expression didn’t change much, but I thought there might be a hint of amusement.  “Make sure ballistics takes a good look at this one,” I added, gesturing to the gun I’d just taken from Agent Teeger.  “I have a feeling it might match up with the bullet from the Weagle murder.”

Vohlers nodded.  With the suspect secured, Keenlan led the way around the corner to the van with the fake repair company logo.  While he locked up Teeger in the back to await the local police, Vohlers invited me to sit in the front seat out of the rain.  Only then did the excitement of the last few hours really catch up with me.  I took a few deep breaths to calm down and focused on the sound of the rain on the windshield.  There’d be a lot more work to do clearing up the details and getting the official investigators up to speed.  Still, I felt a satisfying sense of clarity, about my own problems as well as the case.  _You just solved your first murder.  That’s plenty to show for a summer internship.  Time to go home._


	12. Secrets in Higher Education

I spent a lot of the next week or so repeating the story to representatives of various law enforcement agencies and trying to piece together an idea of the investigation’s progress from their guarded comments.  From what I could gather, P.T. Lytar had been arrested soon after Teeger, Joe Malwae-Newport was cleared of suspicion in the murder case, and the Smithsonian burglars were still on the run, but it wasn’t clear how many others might be implicated.  It was however, a matter of public record that the Greendale Hills Resort project had been abruptly shut down.  In all the confusion, the FBI had forgotten to officially reprimand me for my unauthorized detective work, but I was getting a lot of glares at work from agents upset about the scandal of a colleague being charged with murder.  On the other hand, the other interns seemed a little in awe of me, though the incident was supposedly a secret from them.  My bosses had more or less abandoned the pretense of having me work between interviews, so I spent a lot of time hanging out at my desk and dutifully refusing to share details with co-workers.  I started making regular trips to my new Dreamatorium to run some scenarios, this time without any murders.

I was about to head for the Dreamatorium after another round of questions when Rodriguez called me into her office.  Wondering if they had finally got around to issuing a reprimand, I sat down in the same chair I’d used the day after finding the body.

“The Bureau would like to thank you for your cooperation, belated though it was,” she said stiffly.  “Nonetheless, I’m sure you’re aware your role in the case has been…controversial among our agents.”

“I’ll write a note to myself.  The key to popularity as an intern: deliver coffee on schedule and don’t tell anyone if their co-worker killed a guy.”

She let that slide.  “Given the circumstances of the lead investigator becoming a suspect, my supervisors are willing to refrain from disciplinary action.  We don’t endorse this kind of irregularity, but I must admit it took a lot of talent for you to learn so much without official support.  If you’re still interested in the lab internship, I think they’d be glad to have someone like you provided you agree to do things by the book in the future.”

“Thanks,” I told her, just a little relieved that I wasn’t officially in trouble.  “But I don’t think this is where I belong.  I’m going back to Greendale.  I just got accepted for an internship there where I can work on cases in the field while I finish my forensics degree.  I’d rather do that than work in the lab.  I’m already signed up for fall classes and everything.”

Rodriguez nodded.  “Well, in that case, you’re almost done here and for the record, I’m glad you found the truth.  I thought you should know how our inquiry is going.  In addition to Agent Teeger and the lobbyist, a board member at A.Z. Rogers is being charged with plotting to steal the English Memorial papers.  Congressman Garrison and his staff are being investigated for a potential role as well, but there’s been no indication they were involved in the murder.”

I wasn’t surprised; that fit with what Teeger had told me.  Still, at the very least the story should sink the Congressman’s next reelection campaign.  “Do we know any more about the murder?”

“The gun you turned over to the Secret Service was the one that killed Christopher Weagle.  Agent Teeger isn’t talking, but Lytar has offered to testify against him.  He says Weagle was working with them to cover up the Memorial documents, but became uncomfortable with the extent of their illegal activities and threatened to report them.”

“Teeger thought he really wanted the legendary buried treasure.”  I shrugged.  “I know, it sounds pretty far-fetched, but you expect weird stuff to happen at Greendale.  Brody prefers your theory, but then he didn’t want to believe that Weagle was in on the plan in the first place.”  I’d figured I owed Brody Leitz an explanation after he got me involved in the case to begin with.  I could tell Rodriguez didn’t approve of my talking about the matter outside the Bureau, but she didn’t try to argue.  Instead she wished me good luck and told me I could leave work for the day.

 

It was a sunny afternoon, the air feeling just a bit cooler than before with a hint of autumn.  I walked at a leisurely pace from the train station back to the apartment, wondering just how many familiar faces I’d be seeing back at Greendale.  On one of the less busy streets, I spotted a familiar van slowly cruising the same way I was going.  Moments after I saw it, the vehicle pulled into a nearby alley.  I turned to follow.  As I approached, Agent Vohlers climbed out, carrying a pair of binoculars and glancing around to look for bystanders.  Keenlan was in the front seat, talking to someone through his earpiece.

“More trouble?”  I asked.

She shook her head.  “We were just working in the neighborhood and thought we’d stop by to give you an update.  You’ve officially been taken off all of our watchlists, along with Abed and the rest of your study group.  I’ve concluded my investigation and advised the relevant authorities that the main threats to Operation MARIGOLD come from outside the campus and that Greendale Community College has been beneficial to its security.  It’s no longer appropriate for me to monitor Abed’s life, but I feel I should tell you that the two of you make a good team and I wish you both well.”  She sighed wistfully.

“Thank you,” I told her, wondering what to make of that.  She seemed to be implying things about me and Abed that had been in my thoughts recently as well, but there was a lot for me to think about before I could know what to do about it.  Of course, those weren’t the only confusing things she’d implied.

“Wait—what’s this about ‘MARIGOLD’?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss that with civilians.  It’s been good working with you, Annie.”  To my amazement, Vohlers stepped forward to give me a hug.  Keenlan, watching from the van, looked equally surprised.  “Talk to Ian Duncan, he may have had an unusual phone conversation last year that would interest you,” the Secret Service agent whispered in my ear.  “And let us know if City College keeps causing trouble.”  She got back in the van and the two agents drove away while I looked on with a mix of confusion and curiosity.

When they were out of sight, I got out my phone and sent a text to Abed:  _I’ve been thinking of you.  Missed you a lot this summer.  How’s Hollywood?_

The reply came just moments later.  _I’ve been missing you too.  But having some adventures in the off-season could be a good setup for a reboot later.  The network just cancelled our show, so I’ll be back at Greendale this fall._

_Oh no!  Sorry, I know you were excited about working on that show_ , I wrote back.

_It’s OK.  I’ll have more chance to work on my own films now.  I hope we can see each other soon.  Reunion episode?  Reunion episode?  Reunion episode?  P.S. how did your mystery plot turn out?_

_It got pretty tense for a while, but it worked out fine.  I’ll tell you about it later.  It’s good to hear from you, Abed._

I put the phone away and smiled.  I’d be seeing Abed again soon.  Then maybe we could figure some things out.  And thinking of figuring things out, I had a couple new mysteries to work on when I returned to Greendale.  What other school would have both buried treasure _and_ cryptic government operations hanging around the campus?  That place had secrets piling up like a remote island on a long-running sci-fi show.  I had a feeling it would be another interesting school year.


End file.
